Information
Opinion
We are one week away from the US midterm elections which will see one third of the US Senate, all of the House of Representatives, numerous governorships and state legislatures up for election. As a US citizen, I sent off my ballot a couple of weeks back, having voted Republican right down the line, and am following the races for Governor of California and the California 36th congressional district rather closely. In moments of bibulous reverie I can almost imagine my chappies winning. They won’t of course.
I am hesitant to declare victory until the votes are actually counted as the memories of midterms past are still fresh in my mind.
As I write this, Fox News is up to its old tricks: they are running fake polls from the New York Times (if you please) which show the Democrats leading in numerous important elections; please ignore them. Fox ran similar fake polls in 2018 where they had Senator Braun (Indiana) on a mere 38% and Governor DeWine (Ohio) on 43% a few days before, both won easily. Why Fox loves to poop on Republicans is a mystery.
The current state of the election shows the Republicans have shored things up in all the Senate seats they currently hold: JD Vance in Ohio, Dr Oz in Pennsylvania (after that debate last week), and Ted Budd in North Carolina are all likely to win (although were they ever actually behind?). There is some level of confusion in Alaska, a kind of ‘family feud’, but either way a Republican wins.
As for Democrat Senate seats, Republicans are leading in Nevada and Georgia and it’s basically a tie in New Hampshire and Arizona. But what is interesting is seeing ‘waste of space’ Patty Murray and silly little Michael Bennett struggling; both have been polling under 50% for months with a sizeable chunk of undecided voters in their states; people who haven’t been making up their minds for the incumbent.
With respect to the governorships, Republicans are leading in Wisconsin, Nevada, Kansas, Arizona, and it is basically a tie in New York, Michigan, Oregon and Minnesota; Democrat Shapiro in Pennsylvania has been under 50% the entire election campaign (although everyone seems to expect him to win).
There seems to be a consensus that Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives; a couple of outlier seats they could possibly lose, but otherwise with only 5 gains required it is difficult to see them losing from here, as Kevin McCarthy and the Republican campaign for the House haven’t put a foot wrong. We shall see what eventuates.
I am being cautious because of the polling which says Hispanic voters are now 50/50 (or whatever). If one presumes that Democrats easily (alas) win elections out in California, and taking into account California demographics (i.e. a sizeable chunk of their 50% is concentrated in a small number of places), then it logically means the Republican 50% is spread across the rest of the country (i.e. most Hispanic voters in about 44 states are voting Republican) which would point to a landslide. I am not daring to even think about that!
With one week to go it looks promising but who knows what sick, demented, desperate people will do; Biden could engage in a bit of street theatre – perhaps firing a nuke at Putin – or the voting machines could be rigged or the elections could be cancelled altogether. We just have to wait and see.
Some sources – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_election_in_Indiana#Polling_2
(look at the figure for Fox News 27-30th October) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Ohio_gubernatorial_election#Polling_3
(Fox ran the Gravis poll, also on October 30) https://www.foxnews.com/us/democrats-hold-slight-edge-senate-races-heading-final-week-midterms-poll
(completely fake – can you imagine the Times running a “Republican landslide” story?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elections
(Just click on individual elections and scroll down to “polling” for the figures I quoted.)
