Evan’s Midterm election viewing guide
Evan1’s Midterm election viewing guide - cover page
I’ll try to keep my personal politics and predictions out of this, and provide this as a service for folks who want to understand as quickly as possible on Election Night what is happening. The Senate is in play, the house will likely switch to Republican, several Gubernatorial seats could switch parties, etc. Below is a list by poll closing hour of the states and races to watch. I decided to not focus on control of the House, as I believe many of the close races will not be known until much later in the night (although early indications of stronger than expected D or R success at the statewide level will provide a good barometer, and VA02, VA07, VA10, IN01 and NH02 will likely have results by 10p and be an early indicator2, details further down).
As with previous guides, please share as broadly and widely as you’d like. The link is https://evan.bz/22en I’ll be on twitter and facebook (handle evangrossman) with updates throughout election night and have additional links below
I plan to update this document up through mid-day election day, and will there’s a 1-page PDF scorecard if you may want to print out at: https://evan.bz/22PDF
Next page has states by closing hours, color-coded around toss-up Senate & Gubernatorial
s = Senate race (gray for toss-up, blue / red for lean, blue / red likely)
g = Gubernatorial race (gray for toss-up, blue / red for lean [no coverage of the rest])
My primary goal is to provide a sense of when we are likely to know the results of close races by state. There can always be some races that come down to a few hundred votes, and where the results won’t be known until the weekend. There will also be some states (as with the 2020 elections) where early votes and mail-in ballots are counted later, and where the initial results shown on election night may not be representative – PA is a good example. I’ve tried to also provide a sense of how likely it will be that the results will be apparent3 within 2-3 hours of the poll closing time. However my initial analysis of 2022 early voting shows much higher in-person than mail-in voting and less partisan skew toward voting modality than in 20204.
Throughout the night I’m assuming most commentators will be asking the following questions::
Will the Dems have control of the senate?
Will the R’s gain the house?
How has Dobbs changed the turnout and results?
How is the underlying elections infrastructure changing (and how may it change in the future as deniers of the 2020 election potentially win SecState and other local offices)
Non-partisan message:
It’s not too late to donate to candidates you support, volunteer to get out the vote, thank an election worker for their service, and otherwise participate in this currently precarious institution of democracy. Early voting is still possible in some states, and please make a plan to vote.
Election night by the hour (Eastern US) [https://www.270towin.com/poll-closing-times]
6pm [most if Indiana, part of Kentucky]
Most of Indiana and part of Kentucky close, the interesting IN012 house race won’t close until 7p, networks will quickly declare IN (R) incumbent Ryan the winner;
7pm [Georgia, Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, Vermont, rest of IN and KY]
FLg Crist-D v. DeSantis-R FLs Demings-D v. Rubio-R GAg Abrams-D v. Kemp-R and
GAs Warnock-D v. Walker-R could come in fairly quickly as FL can start counting mail ballots early, GA can’t start loading them in until 7am but as of EOD 11/4, there were >2.5m early votes in GA, but only 500k of those were via mail.
Networks will quickly declare VTs for Welch-D, SCs for Scott-R and KYs for Paul-R
TK on FL v GA mail ballots. Although part of Florida’s pan handle doesn’t close until 8p, most networks start reporting on FL at 7p.
7:30pm [North Carolina, Ohio, West Virginia]
NCs Beasley-D v. Budd-R and OHs Ryan-D v. Vance-R are the next two toss-ups, NC will take awhile (mail ballots can’t get counted until 5p on e-day), OH rules on ballot processing vary by county, but many can be loaded in early.
8pm [Maine, NH, Mass, CT, RI, Penn, NJ, Del, Maryland, DC, Ala,Tenn, FLwest, Miss, Mich, Ill, Missouri, Kans, OK, Tex, NDak, Sdak]
This is when most people will start tuning in, and the nets may finalize some of the earlier calls.
The networks will likely call the following races quickly: ALs Boyd-D v. Britt-R
CTs Blumenthal-D v. Levy-R, ILs Duckworth-D v. Salvi-R, KSs Holland-D v. Moran-R,
MDs Van Hollen-D v. Chaffee-R, MOs Busch Valentine-D v. Schmitt-R,
NDs Christiansen-D v. Hoeven-R, OKs M. Horn-D v. Lankford-R, OKs K.Horn (D.) v. Mullin-R
SDs Bengs-D v. Thune-R [note the 2nd OK race is a special]
I think the Tex. and OK Gov. races could be called early unless Beto does much better than current polling OKg Hofmeister-D v. Stitt-R TXg O'Rourke v. Abbott-R, It’s also possible that Maine and Mich. gov. races get called early unless there has been a red wave in earlier results
MEg Mills-D v. LePage-R, MIg Whitmer-D v. Dixon-R Unlikely that PAg Shapiro-D v. Mastriano-R gets called that early given how may mail ballots will not be counted within 1 hour after poll closing.
That leaves the Kansas Gov. and NH & PA senate races. NHs Hassan-D v. Bolduc-R we may get good data early, as well as for KSg Kelly-D v. Schmidt-R
I think delayed counting of mail ballots will leave PAs Fetterman-D v. Oz-R until Wed. over 1mil mail-in ballots have already been received and they can’t begin processing until 7a on e-day. In ‘20 there were > 2.6m mail ballots.
Also worth watching is NH02 (west & north parts of state), D-incumbent Annie Kuster is likely to win against pro-Trump Burns (whom liberals helped in his primary against a more moderate R), but if she loses, it’ll signal a likely larger R house majority (25+ seats)
8:30pm [Arkansas]
ARs James-D v. Boozman-R will quickly be declared for Boozman
9pm [NY, Wisc, Louisiana, Iowa, Minn, Neb, Wyom, Colo, New Mex, Ariz]
WIs Barnes-D v. Johnson-R WIg Evers-D v. Michels-R like PA, WI mail ballots can’t be processed until e-day, but so far ~400k mail ballots returned vs >1.3mil for ‘20
Arizona will likely get the count done quickly, but given how close the races are I’m not expecting the result before midnight AZg Hobbs-D v. Lake-R AZs Kelly-D v. Masters-R
Other things to look for are the following races tightening (projected winner having a <2-3% margin NYg Hochul-D v. Zeldin-R MNg Walz-D v. Jensen-R NMg Lujan Grisham-D v. Ronchetti-R IAs Franken-D v. Grassley-R COs Bennet-D v. O'Dea-R
Soon after polls close, I expect NYs Schumer-D v. Pinion-R to be called
LAs Primary - Kennedy-R v. sev others if Kennedy gets <50% of the vote there’ll be a runoff in Dec, but it seems likely the seat will stay red
10pm [Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nev]
NVg Sisolak-D v. Lombardo-R and NVs Cortez Masto-D v. Laxalt-R are among the closest races in the country going into eDay. If Clark County (Vegas) is delayed in counting we won’t know until Wed. or Thurs.
IDs Roth-D v. Crapo-R seems clear, UTs Lee-R v. McMullin-I could go to Ind. challenger Evan McMullin, but either way it will be counted as a red vote
11pm [Calif, Oregon, Wash]
ORg Kotek-D v. Drazan-R is still a toss-up
CAs Padilla-D v. Meuser and ORs Wyden-D. v. Perkins-R are pretty clear
WAs Murray-D. v. Smiley-R leans toward Murray, but if there’s a red wave…
I expect counting to go rapidly in all three states so unless it’s a very tight election, results should be known by 2-3a Eastern.
12am [Alaska & Hawaii]
Networks will quickly call HIs Schatz-D v. McDermott-R
The Alaska race use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and likely won’t be known for a few days (although the likelihood is Murkowski’s Senate seat stays R). It will likely take a few weeks to know who wins the AK house seat between Sarah Palin and Mary Peltola (which Peltola just won in the August special election)
Helpful Twitter resources
I'm @evangrosmsan Here are some other folks I follow for real-time insights:
@redistrict - Dave Wasserman editor / data wonk at Cook Political
@NateSilver538 - Official feed for 538’s editor in chief
@Nate_cohn - NY TImes Upshot reporter
@Davidaxelrod - Former Obama campaign manager, good commentary
@JacobRubashkin - Inside Elections analyst
End notes:
1 Hi I’m Evan Grossman, and have volunteered and worked on elections from an early age (I did lit drops as an 8-year old for McGovern in ‘72). My first job out of college was Director of Analytics for the Dukakis campaign (we came in 2nd). I’ve run election day boiler rooms for multiple elections and have been the person who advises a candidate on when to concede or if a victory is likely. I got it wrong in 2000 (thought Gore would win FL and could win NH) and have been wrong many other times. Usually, if I have access to good data from poll watchers, I can call an election in advance of TV. I’m not attached to any campaign this cycle, and plan to spend election night in front of my computer live tweeting interesting statistics from my @evangrossman twitter and facebook accounts.
2 Thanks to @redistrict (Dave Wasserman from Cook Political for the following tweet on house control barometers:
Here's my rough thinking early on Election Night:
- If #VA02 Luria (D) holds on, better night for Dems than expected
- If #IN01 Mrvan (D) or #VA07 Spanberger (D) lose, Rs likely winning 20+ seats
- If #NH02 Kuster (D) or #VA10 Wexton (D) lose, Rs likely winning 30+ seats
Evan’s notes: all those districts close at 7p other than NH which closes 8p
VA02 (inc. Elaine Luria) in a redrawn district that includes Virginia Beach & Williamsburg
IN01 (Inc. Frank Mrvan, NW corner of state (near IL) where polls close at 7p
VA07 (inc. Abigail Spanberger) includes Prince William county, where mail ballots favorable to Spanberger will come in later
3 By apparent I mean obvious to me or another trained political analyst. I expect some networks will continue to call races soon after the result is apparent, but we saw in ‘20 a reluctance to call states such as PA, MI and others where the results clear but the initial tallies skewed in the opposite direction; I’m assuming that since the presidency isn’t on the line, networks will be want to call the Senate and House as early as possible..
4 The broadest Early voting analysis and statistics collection is vis Univ. of FL professor Michael McDonald. His newsletter and website: https://rpubs.com/ElectProject/early_vote_2022 are excellent
Sources used:
Poll closing times by time zone and state
Rules for Counting Mail and absentee ballots by state
https://www.Fivethirtyeight.com -- all of their election forecasts
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