Disaster is Lurking: Erik's 2022 Election Preview

 It's national election time in the U.S. again.  The U.S. Congress is made up of two legislative bodies: the House of Representatives and the Senate.  The House has 435 members and all of them must stand for election every two years.  The Senate consists of 100 members who serve six-year terms.  Elections are staggered for Senators, so only 1/3 of the Senate comes up for election every two years.

Currently, the Senate is evenly divided 50 Republicans (Trump's party) and 50 Democrats (Biden's party). The Democrats control the Senate, despite this tie, because if there is a tie the current President's party is able to break any ties.  This election is incredibly important because if there is even a net gain of one seat by the Republicans in the upcoming election, then they will control the Senate. 

Currently the Democrats control 220 seats in the House, the Republicans control 212, with 3 vacancies. The Republicans only need a net gain of 6 seats to gain control of the House.

Why is this important? If Republicans gain control of either the House or Senate, then President Biden will not be able to pass legislation that he wants.  If Republicans gain control of the Senate he won't get any of his judges, ambassadors, or cabinet members confirmed if current judges/ambassadors/cabinet members quit, retire, or die.  If Republicans gain control of the House, they have the power to impeach Joe Biden.  What justification would they use to impeach Biden?  Current Republican House members haven't come up with any examples of Biden misconduct, but they say they don't care, they just want to impeach Biden because they hate him and because they want to make him pay for Democrats impeaching Trump (for instigating an attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2020 was the reason for the second impeachment).  And the Republicans will be engaging in ridiculous investigations like examining Hunter Biden's laptop.  The Republicans have also signaled they will cut aid to Ukraine, as many Republicans are tied to Putin and Russia.

If Republicans control the House, they can also stop the budget process, and even shut down the entire Federal Government. If you were following U.S. politics during President Obama's second term you will remember that Republicans shut down the government, mainly just to spite Obama.  Basically, if Republicans end up gaining control of either the Senate or House it will be a big mess, and if they gain control of both houses it will be a complete disaster. Nothing positive can possibly get done and the U.S. will experience two years of complete gridlock.  The nation will be in complete paralysis--a recipe for even more civil unrest and violence.  

Even more bad news.  Historically, voters in the U.S. vote against the party of the President in power (Biden and Democrats) during these non-Presidential national election years.  Just that fact alone is a daunting obstacle for the Democrats.  But add the fact that inflation and an unstable economy are usually blamed on the standing President, then you have a recipe for Republican gains.

The only glimmer of hope for Democrats is the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v Wade, the law that allowed for abortion in the U.S. These sweeping restrictions on abortion have galvanized and motivated some women and younger voters, but it's uncertain how many extra voters this will bring into the election cycle.

So......what will happen this coming Tuesday, November 8?  I'll provide you two scenarios that could happen and a third occurrence that will also have an impact on the 2022 Election.

SCENARIO ONE:  REPUBLICAN TAKEOVER

Recent polls measuring key races suggest that the crucial issue is the economy for most voters and they are voting Republican.  Poll aggregators such as fivethirtyeight.com (go to that website for an in-depth look at the poll numbers and specific statistical predictions) take all the poll results of these contests, use their models of voter history, and make predictions of who might win.

The majority of the polls are showing increasing Republican margins in the polls over the past several weeks.  So most aggregators are predicting an 80% chance that the Republicans will control the house and a 50-60% chance that the Republicans will control the Senate.

This is the disaster scenario that I've outlined above: gridlock, paralysis, civil unrest, and violence with the Republicans in charge of the legislative branch of the U.S. government.

If you look at all the data and predictions from the experts, I would assign a 75% PROBABILITY THAT THE DISASTER SCENARIO WILL OCCUR.

SCENARIO TWO:  DEMOCRATS SURPRISE AND RETAIN CONTROL OF BOTH SENATE AND HOUSE

There is some slight glimmer of hope that the Democrats will retain control.  On what evidence could I possible base this optimistic scenario?

Two things:

1.  There have been several special elections held throughout the year.  In almost every case, the Democrats did better than the polling by 5-8%.  It seems that the pollsters, in trying to compensate for under-polling Trump voters in 2016 and 2020 have overcompensated with their corrections and are now over-polling them. Furthermore, there are many newly registered Democratic voters who were mad about abortion being outlawed and the polls for the special elections haven't captured these new younger voters. If these polling trends end up continuing for the Nov. 8 election (Democrats performing 5-8% better than the polls are suggesting), then they will maintain control of Congress.  But, we don't have much evidence or data that this will take place.

2.  If you read the polling for this election cycle, you will notice a big difference between the polls that are measuring Likely Voters, versus those measuring Registered Voters.  Most polls that record the preference of Registered Voters also take into account that a fairly large percentage of Registered Voters never actually vote.  So, pollsters remove those voters who they think will be less likely to vote from their poll results.  These "unlikely" voters tend to be first-time voters who've just registered to vote, younger voters, certain poorer or minority voters. When you remove these voters, you get different polling results, as often these "unlikely" voters tend to vote for Democrats.  If you examine current polls, you will find that in specific polls the Democratic candidate will be leading in the pool of Registered Voters, but when "unlikely" voters are removed, then the Republican candidate tends to lead. Likely Voter measurements are usually considered more-accurate because hopefully, as a pollster, you've done a good job of determining who will be a likely voter, and who will be less likely to vote.  In this particular election cycle, there has been a persistent 4-6% difference between the two ways of counting voters, with Republicans almost always polling better by this 4-6% margin when using the "Likely Voter" polling screen.  

So, the big question is:  is this screen that identifies "Likely Voters" this year an accurate screen?  If young, and newly-registered voters actually end up voting, then the Registered Voter numbers that are 4-6% better for the Democrats will be the polling model that might turn out to be the more accurate model than the Registered Voter one.

If the pollsters have created a poor screen and have not properly identified who the Likely Voters truly will be, then the Democrats might just do far better than expected.  The eight or ten special election held the past few months seemed to have underestimated the Democratic vote, but there have been so few of these special elections this year, it's difficult to determine if this is a trend.

No one knows what will happen.  I think the first scenario is more likely, but there is a 25% PROBABILITY THAT THIS POSITIVE SCENARIO WILL OCCUR.

And then there is more thing to consider.

OCCURRENCE THREE: ELECTION DISRUPTION

Republicans have reached the point where they refuse to accept any election result where they lose.  They then resort to lawsuits and violence and disruption to try to get the result they desire.

Here's something to consider:  the Republican candidate to be the Governor of the State of Wisconsin, has publicly stated that if he wins election and becomes Governor, "no Republican will lose an election in Wisconsin ever again."  That sounds like fascism to me.  Or maybe something Soviet. It just shows that no matter what the results are, the U.S. has entered a period of extreme election instability, thanks to Trumpian/MAGA/Republican evil and their refusal to accept legitimate election results.  It doesn't bode well for the future of U.S. democracy, when one party refuses to ever accept that they've lost, even when all the evidence proves otherwise.  We may never have a proper election in the U.S. ever again, but hopefully we will be able to resist the anti-democratic forces this year at least and have the proper results respected.  Yes, good luck with that.  

100% PROBABILITY THIS DISRUPTION WILL OCCUR.  LET US HOPE THAT IT DOESN'T DISINTEGRATE INTO CIVIL WAR (The probability of civil war occurring is greater than any reasonable American would like to consider, though I must say it is amazing how many unreasonable MAGA Trumpists I've heard cheerleading for a civil war.  It's horrifying.)

FINAL PREDICTIONS

If you believe in Scenario 1 "Republican Takeover", one would predict something roughly resembling a 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate and a 232-203 Republican majority in the House.

If you believe in Scenario 2 "Democratic Surprise", one would predict something roughly resembling a 53-47 Democratic majority in the Senate and a 223-212 Democratic majority in the House.

If you don't fully believe in either scenario, one would predict another 50-50 deadlocked Senate, and a 223-212 Republican majority in the House.

GUIDEPOSTS/RACES TO WATCH for those following live election coverage as it happens.

While watching coverage...

...if Mehmet Oz (Republican) wins the Senate seat in Pennsylvania, then there's a very high chance Scenario 1 is the likely result.  Same if Blake Masters (Republican) wins the Senate seat in Arizona.  If Tiffany Smiley wins the Senate seat in Washington State, then there's definitely a Republican landslide in the works and the Republicans might end up controlling 55 or more Senate seats.

...if the Democrat, Cheri Beasley wins the race in North Carolina (a seat currently controlled by Republicans), then Scenario 2 might be the result.  Same thing if Mandela Barnes (Democrat) can win the Republican-held seat in Wisconsin.

During the last several years I've become an extreme pessimist about American elections and democracy. Have the tissues ready for your tears if you're a Democrat, would be my advice, but sometimes miracles happen.