In regard to the Senate I think the GOP will end the night with 54-55 seats. They may reach 56 if there is an upset in New Jersey, Michigan or Minnesota.
The House is jump ball. Whichever party takes it will have a majority of around 5 seats. Watch for party switchers. The House will be ungovernable and riven with factions seeking a price for party loyalty. I have been observing politics since 1968 and I have never seen the House this close.
In the State Houses I see Democrat gains of 3-6.
Put your predictions in the comboxes
Senate–R 53
House–D + 8
State Houses D + 5
Thank you for an interesting and informative site. You perform a true service.
Cribbing off Rothenberg and Gonzalez, I’m going to guess 52 seats in the Senate and 212 in the House for the Republicans. The Democrats have nominated some godawful candidates (U.S. Senate in Arizona, Attorney-General in Minnesota) but that doesn’s seem to bother anyone except the people who’d vote against them anyway. That is disconcerting.
100% – If the Dems don’t take the House, they’ll blame Russia.
The Dems likely pick up the House. The Senate will hold, but will be much improved as Flake and McCain (RIP) won’t be there. None of it will be veto-proof.
The (God Forbid!) Dem House will waste two years “virtue” signaling over hoaxes: Russia collusion, climate change, gun control, LGBT privileges, etc. Any insane nonsense seeping out of the House likely will fail in the Senate. And, President Trump will not have occasion to Make the Veto Great Again.
Finally, Donald J. Trump will be President through 2025. Life is good.
Prediction is futile in the Age of Trump.
Probably correct Ernst!
Senate lead will increase for Republicans. I fear we underestimate the fury of the left and it will become evident in big House gains for the Dems. I pray for one more conservative voice on the Supreme Court.
Any predictions about the population shrinkage of Illinois after 4 years of Pritzker, Cullerton & Madigan?
You all will think I’m nuts or naíve or both, but based on a gut feeling from estimating how far wrong most polls likely are, my guess is Republicans will have 55 Senate seats and will hold the House. TDS will escalate to unimaginable heights. Meanwhile, if (a big “if”) the mysterious Q is genuine, a raft of indictments against Deep State anti-Trump conspirators will be unsealed in the weeks to come and the Mueller farce will implode. That would be fun, too. And I want a unicorn for my niece. ????
“Any predictions about the population shrinkage of Illinois after 4 years of Pritzker, Cullerton & Madigan?”
I predict 100% chance of my having an upset stomach until we find out, and after we find out life will go on. Good wins in the end…but sometimes the trip to the end REALLY SUCKS.
“100% – If the Dems don’t take the House, they’ll blame Russia.”
Don’t let them have all the fun. I blame Russia for the sloppy condition of my apartment, for example, and if I run late in the morning.
…and just as I hit enter, I saw a fluffy kitten tail slllooooooowly tip past the back of my screen. She crawled into the seltzer box that was leaning against the kids’ desk-books there, and over balanced it.
Me thinks someone is telling me to lighten up. ^.^
Here’s a somewhat more serious comment: Have the past 2 years FELT like both houses of Congress and the President were from the same party? The Senate has reluctantly and with quite a bit of grumbling confirmed Trump’s appointees, which is what an opposition Senate would do in normal years, and Trump has attacked the leadership of both the House and the Senate, which is what a President usually does during divided government. No one has really accomplished much of anything, again characteristic of divided government. If the Democrats take the House, they might start impeaching people right and left, but those impeachments will die in the Republican-controlled Senate anyway. From a practical perspective, though, I don’t think much will change, regardless of who “wins”.
Pennsylvania is gone to the GOP. Too many immigrants from New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and Chicago/Detroit have made our metropolitan regions heavily Democrat and numerous.
House, I think the Dems will pick up about 20, still a far cry from what they expected. Senate, I think the GOP will pick up 2 or 3. Rest of the States, I have no idea because I haven’t been watching anything but my failing state.
I’ve been making courtesy calls for our Right to Life office yesterday. Cold calling folks from a list. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive for the conservatives. Only a small fraction of negative responses from my work on the phones. I know this isn’t proving anything, nor is it much of a gage, but I hope Sen. Stabenow has a disappointing end come tomorrow night.
The majority of the people contacted were very pro Life and following our ballot suggestions for races at hand.
From 4 to 6 I’ll be at a local polling station with Life lists to hand out for anyone in need.
Preparing for the good, bad and the ugly.
God help us…our Nation…our future.
Average prediction: Republican Senate 53-47,
Democrat House 220-215
If all Catholics pray and fast: Republican Senate 60-40, Republican House 235-200
@Gabriel — I take it you’re basing that on all the Bible passages that promise that if we fast and pray, we will be free, prosperous, and militarily triumphant. Maybe you have Ezekiel 14:14 in mind. Perhaps you’re combining that with passages on how we can hope for political leadership to solve our problems: passages like Isaiah 36:6 and Psalm 146:3.
Pennsylvania is gone to the GOP. Too many immigrants from New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and Chicago/Detroit have made our metropolitan regions heavily Democrat and numerous.
Pensylvania’s population has increased by 5% since 1994. It’s not one of the more demographically dynamic states in the country (New York City’s population has increased by 7.5% in that time). As recently as 20 years ago (and, I would wager, still) it was second only to Louisiana in the share of the state’s population which was native. Between 1952 and 1994 every Republican Senator and Governor elected in the state was either a political temporizer or at least vaguely liberal. Messrs. Santorum, Toomey, and Corbett have been more in line with the Republican mainstream. (http://www.ontheissues.org/Tom_Corbett.htm).
It’s possible the Dems will have a good night, but I’m skeptical as to the reliability of polls and media reporting, which has seldom accurately forecast GOP success or Dem. failure. Trump supporters are highly motivated. So are pro-lifers as always. Reporting on early voting has been very inconsistent. And we’re only two years past the Hillary blowout that wasn’t to be. I expect the GOP to hold the House with minimal losses, and increase their margin in the Senate.
Prediction?…Pain!
1. I won’t have my intelligence insulted by JB Pritzker ads.
2. Both parties need to realign there internal coalitions. This is overdue from the usual cycle. It should have happened a decade ago but Mr. Obama froze the situation. No matter what, everything in the House of Representatives should be painted bright red to hide the blood. That’s both internal party fighting and interparty fighting.
“Both parties need to realign [their] internal coalitions.” That’s been overdue since AT LEAST the end of the Cold War. I suspect the main reasons it doesn’t happen are (1) people are lazy creatures of habit and (2) the wealthy donors and power brokers in either party have little interest in the priorities of the average voter, but the average voter works very hard to fool himself otherwise, so he can pretend to be much more powerful than he really is.
Pennsylvania has become tougher for the GOP, but not for the reasons Mr. Spaulding cites. Latino immigration in Lancaster and the Philly area is one factor. The other is that suburban Philadelphia was reliably Rockefeller Republican until 1992. No more. Clinton flipped it. Outside of Allegheny, Southwestern Pennsylvania has turned against the Dems…..but we lose population every year.
. No one has really accomplished much of anything, again characteristic of divided government.
?
They killed a bunch of regulation, they’ve been confirming lower court judges like it’s going out of style, passed a good start on tax reform, have been taking apart Obamacare bit by bit (since it was designed to explode if it was yanked out, this is a painful necessity), confirmed TWO decent Supreme Court judges while the Dems were losing their bleepin’ minds, and holy crud has Trump been doing an “is he insane, or crazy like a fox?” job of setting rabbits loose every time they are trying to get stuff through congress.
Congress isn’t getting as much done as it could because the media is overwhelmingly on their side, and the Dems are going absolutely bug-nuts.
@Foxfier — Big-picture-wise, that’s basically nothing. And yeah, I understand that the Big Picture is (and probably always has been) beyond the scope of politics, but we are way too deep in the jungle for me to be impressed by baby steps. It’s like being in the middle of the Brazilian rain forest and being asked to be impressed that over the course of one day, we hiked one mile closer to the Atlantic Ocean: great, in just a thousand more years at this pace, we’ll be there. You would need to pay careful attention to the news to see the changes you’re talking about. Meanwhile, changes in the number of men who want to pretend to be women (or vice versa), or the number of people who casually engage in some forms of magic, or who shack up and have kids out of wedlock without batting an eye — these are real, serious ways the country has changed quite recently and in a way visible to EVERYONE, not just those who make a hobby out of the news or politics. But these destructive new behaviors are now a part of the big tents of both parties.
But even in terms of the high-profile projects that Trump likes to talk about, nothing important has happened. “The Wall” is about as real as a Mars colony, and his immigration bans have been struck down and modified so often that it’s hard to care if any part of them still exists.
Where the heck are you thinking we’re headed to, Utopia?
@Foxfier — “Where the heck are you thinking we’re headed to, Utopia?” Scarcely. And that’s my point. We’re not slouching towards Gomorrah any more, we’re sprinting towards it; and even if I give the maximum possible weight to all the “accomplishments” you value from the last Congress, vanity of vanities, and in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing is lasting under the sun.
So even if the GOP is expelled from the majority in the House, it is not exactly like we as a country are being expelled from Eden; this has not been some sort of Republican Camelot.
we’re sprinting towards it
More of a solid jog, but same direction. Afraid the Trump era is just to slow the pace for a while so we can catch our breath. Then, the next sprint.