Election Recap: The 2022 election held a structural advantage, one of systemic one-party administrative origin, one that won’t be repeated.
My predictions were wildly off, and this is late, but here’s my take on what happened, who was right, and the consequences for House investigations. Because that is the only reason I cared about this election—the consequences of a House investigation into the global collusion that occurred under the guise of health to steal our freedoms. I’ll get to that, but first, here is a run-down of the results.
In the Senate, I thought the Republicans would win four seats, they lost 1, or it’s the same, with another GA runoff. My model was following nearly exactly the RCP and betting market. The notion that RCP has been wrong in their models is not true (historically speaking), but it certainly feels that way lately. The same goes for Trafalgar. Going into 2022, they were the 4th ranked pollster by accuracy:
538 puts them at A-, with an R lean comparable to others that lean Dem, like PPP. Anyway, I don’t think polling is the problem (in the sense that we expect them to be correct anymore). The horserace polls are a snapshot that used to matter more with a focus on the election day, but that calculation changes when factoring in early voting. It calls into question the ability to poll correctly to predict an outcome, which will move it down the list further.
To hammer this point home, the person who called this election spot-on in the Senate (missing just Ohio but also missed the House where he thought D’s would pick up 2), gave little attention to the polls and nearly all attention to early voting patterns.
In the House, I was just as surprised, where the ‘21 result of a 9-seat majority of Democrats will become a 4-5 seat majority of Republicans in ‘23; about 24 seats short of my prediction (ugh/haha).
There was a red wave of those voting Republican, and they were up by 2.5% in the generic, which moved to about 4% in the actual vote. The ingredients were there.
Politico was the most off from the outcome, but they are who you’d expect would be correct, given the above House outcome. The generic didn’t matter regarding a wave election.
So what happened?
It is just that Democrats got more early votes in those toss-up places due to targeted efforts; Republicans (with notable exceptions FL/VA/CA) haven’t engaged the EV harvest.
Other Factors
This is the Senate map. As you can see, it is quite diverse, without a wave either way. This dyslexic outcome was a trend. In North Carolina, Republicans flipped two democrat incumbent Supreme Court seats, and in 2023, they will likely have a 5-2 majority. In Michigan, the Democrats now have a trifecta, taking over the legislative branches. And those are two of many examples.
What I think this points toward is how fundamentally the increase in Independents skews the former national partisan assumptions. And secondly, how different election laws are changing the way people vote (reinforcing the above). These factors make each State more resilient to national trends, each having its own EV rules and party dynamics. Democrats wanted to federalize the elections, but that isn’t going to happen; things are moving in the opposite direction.
In Pennsylvania, you can start early voting Fifty Days before an election. Some states have all-mail, and a handful of others haven’t changed at all. The state-by-state ballot laws vary a lot on ballot harvesting. However, the mantra “Democrats have the edge in early voting in most battleground states, but Republicans could make up the difference on Election Day” is no longer true. It is true in places like Virginia and Florida, where there is an emphasis on it. Trump, in 2020, was saddled by not adapting to the changing terrain by telling them not to vote early, and apparently, the party is still under that notion in many States.
45 million voted early, primarily Democratic, and Republicans caught up and passed them on election day, but not in the toss-up contests.
There can’t be a wave without a level playing field, and this one has been self-imposed:
Democrats have mastered mail balloting. Republicans will pay if they fail to step up:
PITTSBURGH — The first thing Allegheny County Republican Chairman Sam DeMarco saw on election night after the polls closed was the more than 100,000 votes from his home county that dropped for Democrat John Fetterman through mail-in ballots. Although he wasn’t sure just yet that that meant the race was lost, he also knew Republicans needed to fix something in the party’s way of doing things going forward.
“Those initial large dump of voters were mail-in ballots from Democrats,” he said of the advance voting that began in 2020 during the pandemic. Democrats embraced it with gusto, but Republicans shied away.
This is just about what it was, and it’s going above 40% next cycle:
When all the dust is settled, it will be interesting to see what the percentage of mail-in votes for Democrats was in the final count; anything over 40% is a real problem for Republicans going forward if they don’t right their mail-in ballot ship.
As I mentioned about the polling above:
Currently, Democrats are miles ahead of Republicans at targeting specific races and voters. Through mail balloting, they put those voters in the bank early. This year, they executed and focused and performed; that's why they have probably saved their U.S. Senate majority, based on vote counts as of this writing. It's why they were able to limit Republican gains in the House to maybe just a handful, or maybe none at all.
A lot of pollsters missed this, because Democrats had timed a lot of their advertising to hit right when the early voting began — especially their messages on abortion. This paid dividends. They banked their voters and created a mirage for analysts who thought the races were closer than they calculated.
I think the Republicans will adapt to this imbalance with the issue of not working on the EV GOTV effort. It’s just wild that they have it in the first place:
Florida Republicans certainly have figured it out. In 2018 and 2020, the Democrats went into Election Day with more ballots cast than Republicans in early voting. This year, Florida Republicans flipped that on its head. Republicans in other states should take note.
Also, there’s also this type of nonsense going on with election day shenanigans:
I don’t think it’s unique or rare, and I believe exploits of votes are happening. But I am not sure it’s the tipping point. Although, when you consider what happened in the Governor race of Arizona (and more on that later when it is concluded), I wonder.
EVs matter, and I hope now that Republicans begin harvesting votes in States they can (like PA— and really all of them to some extent), the EV will get more scrutiny and hopefully become more transparent. I think the days of there being one day and the results announced that night are way better, but thats part of the old normal that’s lost.
Conclusion
If I redo the voter model, I would include the EV in all states as a factor. The betting market will have more of a focus on it, too. It would benefit from including a factor about social media presence. The Republicans are vastly under-presence on tik-tok, snapchat, where zoomers are online. The online landscape is becoming further decentralized, and the mainstream narrative is diffusing.
So much for the elections. The Republicans got the majority of the vote, not the Senate, but they gained the House.
Time for the investigations to begin in the House.
Republicans rev up probes on everything from vaccine injury to Jan. 6 security failures
One question that needs to be resolved early is whether House committee chairmen will be given unilateral authority to issue subpoenas under the GOP rules package or be forced to get a committee vote where Democrats or one recalcitrant Republican can foil an investigation.
With a slim majority, this may be the best hope of making an impact against this cancerous global agenda to end sovereignty. Overall, this election appears to have resulted in a “tap the brakes” moment for the Republicans. They don’t have their shit together, and it shows with their re-electing the 7% approval McConnell— it is so disgusting.
I voted 3rd party. Some guy I’d never heard of, but the other two were Uniparty. The one other takeaway I have from this election is about the Libertarian Party. If it took up ballot harvesting, with some serious funding behind it, it (the efficiency of one election day x50 in Pennsylvania, for example) could be pretty disruptive. Same for any third-party effort in 2024. Outside (or alongside) of that chance, I expect the Republican wave to get bigger.