Predicting the Accuracy of my Midterm Predictions Once the 2020 Midterm Results are In — Yes, the Dems Keep the House
My sense is that I am going to be one seat off in the Senate — the Dems will take NV and AZ, and the most compelling argument for the Dems taking the last seat in Georgia during the run-off is that Walker, the GOP candidate in GA, is a Trumper.
The second most potent reason the Dem in the GA Senate race will win is that after the Dems take NV and AZ, they will have 50 seats and be in control of the Senate (again). Once the Dems have control of the Senate, the GA race is not about control of the Senate anymore. The 2020 runoff will be just another Senate race during an election the Republicans had a very bad day.
Republican voters in Georgia, traumatized by the national results of the 2020 midterms, and having lost two Senate seats during the last runoff Senate election in 2020, can be forgiven if they don’t run out to the polls for another loss. Simply put, GOP turnout will be down.
My minus-one vote theory, that the non-Trumpists will not vote for a Trumper in numbers that move election results, will happen again in the Georgia runoff, just like it did in every race where a Trumper was running in these midterms — and Walker is a died in the wool Trumper.
These are the reasons turnout will be down in the Georgia Senate runoff.
There is one last thing about Walker in Georgia, one Republican told me, “if you asked me if Hershal Walker should be a U.S. Senator, my answer is no.”
The reason I was one off in the Senate is I thought Ron Johnson of Wisconsin would lose, but as the sun rose on the day after the election, Johnson was declared the winner. If his opponent had not been photographed holding an “Abolish ICE” T-shirt — all while insisting he would fund ICE during the election, things may have been different.
US House
My prediction in the House was for 220 to 221 seats for the Dems in the House.
It appears that the Dems can still retain control of the House once all the votes are counted.
As NBC News reported this morning:
NBC News has not yet projected which party will control the House, but an estimate modeling the outcome finds Republicans with a slightly better chance. Republicans would have a razor-thin majority should they win.
I’ll take those odds.
And yes, I still think the Dems will keep control of the House — and if they do, then the Dem margin of the majority will be one, maybe two House seats (219 or 220 ), meaning my estimate of the Dems winning 220 or 221 House seats will be off by one or two seats.
If the conventional wisdom and mainstream media are right, and the GOP control the House by 220 seats or maybe a handful more, my House prediction will be off by maybe six or seven seats, but a critical six or seven seats that give the GOP control of the US House.
But, in general, these predictions were more accurate than anyone else’s, according to top campaign operatives for both the Dems and the GOP who’ve told me exactly that.