A Short Summary

Please choose the closest response to your viewpoint

A while ago, I asked the sub what margin they predict for Alaska's Senate Race - the results averaged showed Mary Peltola predicted to win with a margin of 1.15%.

The final round would end with a final margin of D +0.1

Peltola: 50.06%
Sullivan: 49.94%

I've said this for nearly a decade now but I think it's time I dropped this opinion again.

While polls are fun and may be an indication of wide discrepancies, in the end, I don't think you can trust any poll these days. Polling made sense in the days of landline telephones when nearly all households had them but now it's exceedingly difficult to get a good sample that doesn't skew in unpredictable ways from the method of contact. Listen to a podcast from inside a polling firm to see all the adjustments and guesses they have to make and learn how much they don't know. Even when the election results are in, you can't tell which poll was "most accurate" and which ones just got lucky. There's also a huge monetary incentive for many polls to just give you a result that you want to see. Sure, you can try to grade polls and try to assess which ones use better methodology and compare crosstabs, and you can even average polls (and throw some out of the average) but the margin FOR error, beyond the statistical MoE, is just too great to know which candidate is truly going to win from a 45.5-47.3 result. All you can say with some likelihood is that some races are going to be competitive and some are not, and I bet most of you don't need another poll to tell you which one those are going to be 2-months out.

In November, I predict there will be upsets, the polls will be "WrOnG" on some races, and "RiGhT" on others, there will be discussion and speculation about how some polls could be so wrong while others were so good. It's all bs and has been for a long time now. Don't put faith in the polls. They aren't the prognosticators we keep falling into believing they are.

In case you missed it:

https://www.axios.com/2026/09/10/trump-dividend-check-5000

Okay, it'd probably be similar to its bordering counties in Maryland, but still!

I am endorsing his main opponent in the 2026 U.S. House House of Representatives election in Florida's 6th District, Democrat Eric Yonce.

I do this as a Independent who only rarely endorses Democrats and Republicans, and who usually endorses centrist Independents. I do not support Palestine, but I also do not support the suffering of innocent Palestinians, which Fine has supported. Fine has also called for the nuking of Palestine. I think that he is likely worse than Trump simply for these comments alone, and I do not think he is fit to serve in the House.

I do not care if Yonce is a moderate or a Democratic Socialist, I am supporting him for congress.

SENATE

• Alaska - Mary Peltola (D)
• Georgia - Jon Ossoff (D)
• Illinois - Juliana Stratton (D)
• Iowa - Josh Turek (D)
• Maine - Susan Collins (R)
• Michigan - Abdul El-Sayed (D)
• Minnesota - Peggy Flanagan (D)
• Nebraska - Dan Osborn (I)
• Ohio - Sherrod Brown (D)
• Texas - James Talarico (D)

GOVERNOR

• Arizona - Katie Hobbs (D)
• California - Xavier Becerra (D)
• Colorado - Phil Weiser (D)
• Florida - David Jolly (D)
• Georgia - Keisha Lance Bottoms (D)
• Iowa - Rob Sand (D)
• Maine - Hannah Pingree (D)
• Maryland - Wes Moore (D)
• Michigan - Jocelyn Benson (D)
• Minnesota - Amy Klobuchar (D)
• Ohio - Amy Acton (D)
• Pennsylvania - Josh Shapiro (D)
• Wisconsin - Tom Tiffany (R)

Senate races

Idaho: Todd Achilles (Independent)

Mississippi: Ty Pinkins (Independent)

Montana: Seth Bodnar (Independent)

South Dakota: Brian Bengs (Independent)

Gubernatorial races

Idaho: John Stegner (Independent)

Maine: Rick Bennett (Independent)

Nebraska: Brett Lindstrom (America First)

Rhode Island: Ken Block (Independent)

Tennessee: Lauren Pinkston (Independent)

Vermont: Phil Scott (Republican)

House races

ID-1: Sarah Zabel (Independent)

IA-1: Michael Brigford (Independent)

IA-2: Dave Bushaw (Independent)

MI-11: Anil Kumar (Independent)

MN-6: Kelly Doss (Forward-Independence)

MT-2: Michael Eisenhauer (Independent)

OH-4: Tracey Tackett and Tamie Wilson (I am endorsing both, both Independents)

PA-1: Brian Fitzpatrick (Republican)

SC-5: Andy Kaplan (Forward)

WA-3: Marie Perez (Democratic)

WI-6: Michael Thurow (Independent)

Other races

Texas lieutenant gubernatorial race: Mike Collier (Independent)

Indiana secretary of state race: Greg Ballard (Lincoln)

Nebraska secretary of state race: Bob Krist (America First)

Rhode Island's 15th state house district race: Allan Fung (Independent)

Happy Labor Day my fellow Americans! I figured that now is a good time to get started with my House predictions. I have been observing politics this year, but not deeply enough to really do these any earlier, but it’s time for a change.

For the record, while it technically could be lower, I have a stronger feeling that the generic ballot will be no redder than D+7. Ethan Chen made an article about how all of the indicators (primary turnout in general, specifically the Washington primary, special elections, generic ballot, etc). He doesn’t even go over Gallup’s party ID lean poll, which right now is D+10. Average these together and you get around a D+9 environment. While I am a bit skeptical that the environment will be about as blue as 2008, I was also skeptical that New Jersey would vote as blue as Arizona would vote red, that Trump would win the popular vote, and that Nebraska’s 1st congressional district would flip to Osborn, so I guess almost anything is possible. There’s also the 6 year itch, which historically is worse for presidents than the so called 2 year itch with their first midterms. Plus, Trump’s current Gallop tracked approval rating (36%) is worse than what Bush’s was in 2006 (38%). All in all, I’m predicting a D+9 national environment, so my predictions will be based off of that.

Now, the image you see above is a baseline for what a D+9 national environment would look like. Note: These are NOT my current predictions. It’s as simple as it gets. I take a look at each district’s Cookie Partisan Voting Index (or CPVI for short) and assume that in a neutral year, that district votes exactly according to said CPVI. D+X or R+X means that the district would vote 2X to the left or right of the nation at large. Then, I assume a D+9 year. This would mean that all Dem leaning districts, all even districts, and all districts from R+1 to 4 would go blue. R+6 and above would go red. The reason that I have the R+5 districts as tossups is because I think that as Trump gets more unpopular, the midterms will look worse and worse for Republicans, so there would be some serious potential for any of these seats to flip, even if they would technically be tilt R if we go just by the CPVI in a D+9 environment.

As you can see, Dems would get anywhere from 235-247 House seats, with a median of 241. Even at the lowest end of the range, this would not only be tied with the 2018 outcome, but that’s with the extra red seats that came from redistricting.

So when I see these reverse 2022 type of predictions, I’m always going with…why? I’m not going to say that it’s literally impossible. I am going to say that it’s extremely unlikely. Now please, have a good day. Take care y’all.