PSW Weekly Round-Up - 11/1

Political Update

Election Outlook. Last week, the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter raised its projection of House Republican gains from 10 to 20 seats to between 12 and 25 seats. As for the Senate, five races are in Cook’s toss-up category – three Democratic held seats (Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada) and two Republican held seats (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin).

Many analysts point to the outcomes in Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania as key to which party will end up in the majority in the Senate. If Republicans win two of those three (and hold their other seats), they will control the Senate in the next Congress. Others predict that whichever party wins three of four races (add Ohio to the list) will be the majority party. If a runoff is needed in Georgia, the election will be Dec. 6.

2022 Polling. According to FiveThirtyEight, there is less polling of individual races this year than in previous midterms, and more of those polls are conducted by partisan pollsters or sponsored by partisan organizations. Also, fewer pollsters are conducting surveys – over the past six months or so, 150 different pollsters have surveyed Senate, House, and gubernatorial elections, down from roughly 190 in 2018.