The Big Picture
The midterm elections leave the U.S. very closely divided between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The end result will be two years of legislative gridlock.
Republicans have secured a majority of the U.S. House giving them a veto power in the legislative process and the power to initiative all appropriations bills. Democrat will have either 50 or 51 seats in the U.S. Senate and will control it.
Democrats, of course, control the Presidency.
Conservatives, of course, have a 6-3 majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and at least five of those U.S. Supreme Court conservatives are not moderate conservatives.
This Election Was Extremely Close
If the results turn out as predicted, the margin of Republican victory in the marginal U.S. House race (the third closest) was 0.69 percentage points.
The margin of Democratic victory in the marginal U.S. Senate race (Nevada, the second closest) was 0.9% (with 1.2% of voters choosing none of the above). The margin of Democratic victory in the next closest U.S. Senate race won by a Republican (Wisconsin) was won by incumbent Ron Johnson by 1.0 percentage points.
In other words, a 0.7 percentage point blue shift nationally in the outcomes would have allowed Democrats to retain control of Congress, and a 1.0 percentage point blue shift nationally would have allowed Democrats to have 52 seats in the U.S. Senate (enough to use the nuclear option to abolish the filibuster and achieve the Democratic party's legislative agenda) without a runoff election in Georgia.
Democrats will control the U.S. Senate where they have 50 seats plus the tie breaking vote of the Vice President (which is what they had before the election), and could win one more seat in a Georgia runoff election in December, if the incumbent who came in first place with 49.4% of the vote in the first round is re-elected v. 48.6% for his Republican opponent (a 0.8 percentage point lead).
The outcome of the ranked choice voting race in Alaska's U.S. Senate race is still undecided and very close but it is between two Republicans: incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski, a relative moderate in the U.S. Senate's Republican caucus, is favored to win due to second choice votes from Democrats, despite trailing by 0.2 percentage points in the first round vote with 90% of the vote counted.
The Remaining House Races
Democrats had 222 House seats to 213 Republican seats before the election. The most likely result it that Republicans will flip seven net seats in their favor, although it could be as few as five. This is far less of a "red wave" than anticipated based upon recent polling and other models.
In the race for the U.S. House, the Republicans have won 218 seats, the Democrats have won 211 seats (including CA-34 where both candidates are Democrats), and the partisan control of 6 seats still undecided. Democrats will probably win at least 4 of the remaining seats, and Republicans will probably win 2 of the remaining seats, leaving a 220-215 split in the U.S. House.
(1) LIKELY D -- CA-47 is still too close to call with 89% of the vote counted and the vote split 51-49 between the incumbent Democrat and the Republican challenger. The Washington Post predicts that the Democrat will win based upon where the uncounted votes are located.
(2) LIKELY D -- CA-13 is still too close to call with 86% of the vote counted and the Democrat leading by 0.6% in the open seat. The Washington Post predicts that the Democrat will win based upon where the uncounted votes are located.
(3) LIKELY D -- CA-22 is still too close to call with 64% of the vote counted and the vote split 52% to the incumbent Republican and 48% to the Democratic challenger whom the Washington Post forecasts will win based upon where votes remain to be counted.
(4) LIKELY D -- AK is the ranked choice voting race in Alaska (at large) with incumbent Democrat Mary Peltola getting 48.1% of the first choice vote, Republican Sarah Palin getting 26.1% of the first choice vote, Republican Nick Begish getting about 24-24.4% of the vote, and other candidates (and rounding errors) capturing the remaining 1.4-1.8% of the first choice vote. Based upon the previous vacancy election for the same post a few months ago, enough voters with a Republican or third-party first choice vote will name Peltola as a second choice for Peltola to win that race.
(5) LIKELY R -- One of the undecided races is CO-3 in which incumbent Republican Lauren Boebert leads by only 0.4 percentage points over Democrat Adam Frisch with 98% of the vote counted. The Democrat has a real chance, although probably less than 50-50 chance, of recapturing his early lead when the final ballots are tallied and announced on Friday.
(6) LIKELY R -- One of the undecided races is CA-3 in which the Republican candidate leads the Democrat by 4.6 percentage points with 60% of the vote counted. This was a competitive district based upon the 2020 Presidential vote. The New York Times predicted that a Republican would win this race narrowly, and this prediction is on track to be fulfilled.
Notable Races And Trends
In part, the weak midterm shift to Republicans is a function of President Biden's non-existent coattails in Congressional races in the 2020 election. As noted by the Washington Post:
Republicans outran Trump’s margins in 344 districts. By comparison, Democrats outperformed Biden in just 69 districts. . . .
Florida districts swung consistently Republican in an election spearheaded by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who pushed an aggressive gerrymander that helped win 20 of the 28 seats. Republicans gained four seats there.
Meanwhile in New York, Democrats lost four seats to Republicans as redistricting made their contests more competitive. Areas upstate voted more like rural areas elsewhere in the country. . . .
There’s still a lot of the vote to be counted in California so exact shifts are uncertain, but Republicans have secured three seats in districts where Biden beat Trump.
There were a number of races where one party or the other performed far better or far worse than expected based upon the 2020 Presidential election vote in the district.
Notable Republican Underperformance in Republican Leaning Districts
Alaska is a Trump + 10 state, but ranked choice voting and a divided Republican ticket will probably allow a strong Democrat candidate to win the House race. This was predicted to be a narrow win for the Democrat, however, because she won the same race just a few months ago.
Incumbent Republican Lauren Boebert's race in CO-3 was predicted to be an easy GOP win and is a Trump + 8 district. She currently leads by just 0.35 percentage points. This is almost entirely due to the fact that she is an extremely weak candidate in a district that is more moderate within the Republican political spectrum than many rural districts. It is the only race Republicans were expected to win easily that was even close. No Republican won any other safe GOP district by less than 8 percentage points.
Some of the races that Republicans were predicted to win narrowly, they did win narrowly, including Iowa-3 (0.69 percentage points) and Michigan-10 (0.49 percentage points). A Democrat won one such race: WA-3 (0.97 percentage points). A Republican is leading by 5 percentage points in CA-3 which has not been called yet. All other races in which the GOP was expected to win narrowly it won by at least 3 percentage points.
Notable Democratic Underperformance In Democratic Leaning Districts
Democrats won all of the races they were expected to win easily, but two of them were relatively close: CA-34, where the Democrat is leading by 4 percentage points and FL-9 where the Democrat won by 7 percentage points. No Democrat lost any other safe Democratic district by less than 9 percentage points.
Democrats won all of the races they were expected to win narrowly. Alaska as noted above is still notable and has not yet been called. The Democrat won NY-18 by just 0.99 percentage points. All other races that Democrats were expected to win narrowly were won by Democrats by at least 5 percentage points.
Competitive Races
The New York Times identified 36 competitive races. Republicans have won 9. Democrats have won 24. Three have not yet been called CA-13, CA-22, and CA-47, all of which are predicted to be won by Democrats in the end, with Democrats winning 75% of the competitive races.
The competitive races with a margin of victory for the winner in a decided race of less than 3 percentage points were as follows:
Four races for Republicans: AZ-1 (R 0.87 percentage points), NY-17 (R 0.82 percentage points), NY-19 (R 2 percentage points), and NY-22 (R 1 percentage point).
Five races for Democrats: CO-8 (D 0.73 percentage points), CT-5 (D 0.81 percentage points), NM-2 (D 0.69 percentage points), OR-6 (D 2 percentage points), PA-7 (D 2 percentage points).
The other competitive seats decided so far and won by Republicans by 3 percentage points or more were CA-27 (8), NE-2 (3), NY-3 (8), NY-4 (4) and VA-2 (3).
The other competitive seats decided so far and won by Democrats by 3 percentage points or more were CA-49 (5), IL-17 (3), Ind-1 (6), ME-2 (6) (ranked choice voting), MI-7 (5), MN-2 (5), NV-1 (6), NV-3 (4), NH-1 (8), NC-13 (3), OH-1 (5), OH-13 (5), PA-8 (3), PA-17 (6), RI-2 (4), TX-28 (13), TX-34 (8), VA-7 (3), WA-8 (7).
Notable Regional Trends
Democrats stumbled badly in New York State, in part due to an unfavorable state supreme court redistricting decision, and lost several races that they should have won in California. Democrats also lost a lot of ground in Florida. Democrats did surprisingly well in Alaska, Colorado (where Democrats also did very well at the state level), and Washington State.
There is not a single Republican member of the House from the six New England states, Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, New Mexico, for a total of ten states. Some of these, e.g. Maine and Alaska, have Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
There is not a single Democratic member of the House from Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming, for a total of eleven states. Some of these, e.g. West Virginia, have Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
The other 39 states have divided U.S. House delegations.
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