Dems Do Better than Polls, Predictors Thought but GOP Takes House, Senate is Close

Ticket splitters helped several Democratic candidates | Votes being tallied in Arizona, Nevada, Calif.

Abbreviated dispatch today that will focus on what we know and do not know about midterm elections.

• Democrats did better than expected and the only wave of the evening was the impressive wins in Florida by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio.
• Looks like the GOP will win the House but by a modest amount of 5 seats or so… could go higher with more than a few races unsettled.
• Senate is close but currently tilting toward the Dems but the GOP could still win the chamber pending final votes in Nevada and Arizona and winning any Ga. runoff. Dem John Fetterman won in Pa. against Mehmet Oz, GOP Adam Laxalt leads in Nevada, and Dem Raphael Warnock is slightly ahead in Georgia vs Herschel Walker, but is under 50% which means a potential runoff Dec. 6. GOP J.D. Vance beat Dem challenger Tim Ryan in Ohio Senate race. GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is just barely ahead of Dem challenger Mandela Barns who saw a lot of young voters coming out for him. North Carolina Senate race saw GOP candidate Rep. Ted Budd besting former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley for retiring Sen. Richard Burr's seat. Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) were projected to win re-election, keeping those seats in Democratic hands.
• Dems did better than late polls and most predictors thought. It seems like pollsters actually favored Republicans too much as they changed their methodology to compensate for undercounting Republicans in other years.
• Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) won easily despite a usually accurate Iowa poll showing the race was close. Meanwhile, voting showed Iowa clearly going Republican.
• Crime was not as big an issue in voting-day surveys.
• Biden’s job rating hurt, but many Dems polled above him.
• Undecided voters: Not a major factor.
• Ticket splitters were big in some states like Georgia.
• Minority voters: GOP made inroads among Hispanic voters but in southern Texas, GOP picked up just one of three coveted seats.
• Trump and his candidates galvanized Dems to vote, and several Trump-pushed candidates lost. It seems possible — as it did after the Georgia runoffs in 2020 — that Trump might have cost his party a very winnable Senate majority with some of his flawed candidates.
• Abortion/Supreme Court ruling brought more Dem voters. The issue did not fade as some thought. Meanwhile, voters passed measures guaranteeing abortion access in California, Michigan and Vermont, while an antiabortion proposal in Republican-leaning Kentucky was trailing early Wednesday.
• Dems picked up two of three toss-up districts in Virginia, with Dem incumbent Abigail Spanberger beating GOP challenger Yesli Vega in the 7th district.
• Governor races: Democrats held off challengers in several races that polls showed could be close including Wisconsin, New York and Michigan, while Republican incumbents won decisively in Florida (DeSantis over Crist). Texas (Greg Abbott over Beto O’Rourke) and Georgia (GOP incumbent Brian Kemp over Dem Stacy Abrams). Democrats prevailed in the only two states to flip, Maryland and Massachusetts. In New York, incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul defeated Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin by around 5 points. Oregon’s governor race is too close to call, but if the GOP candidate wins, it would be the first such win in 40 years.
• Another theme of Election Day: Nearly all incumbents survived. However, longtime GOP Rep. Steve Chabot was upset in Ohio for the state’s 1st Congressional District as he conceded his race to Democrat Greg Landsman.
• Key farm-state lawmakers: House Ag Chairman David Scott (D-Ga.) and ranking member G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) were easily re-elected. Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) won re-election. Georgia’s Sanford Bishop and as noted Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger were among Democrats winning close races. Bishop chairs the House Ag Appropriations Subcommittee, while Spanberger chairs the House Ag subcommittee that oversees conservation programs.
   

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