Peerless Prognostications - 2026 Midterm Elections

 

I once told a colleague that for me, Election Night was like the 4th of July, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve all rolled into one.  That was probably three decades ago, when elections were important but didn't seem to always carry with them an existential crisis in the waiting.

What was once fun has turned into an ordeal.  The incessant political ads, the vast majority of which stretch the truth beyond recognition; the propensity (at least in California) to place issues on the ballot that are more appropriately addressed by our elected representatives; the general ugliness of the political atmosphere...I could go on, but you get the point.

Today is Election Day, and I don't think it's hyperbole to say that this is the most important midterm election of my lifetime.  For those who follow politics closely, we could also be witnessing an historic shift at a national level, akin to how the passage of Proposition 187 in 1994 changed the political landscape in California for a generation - and not in the way that the authors of the measure intended.

Once upon a time, there was a online political publication in California - the name escapes me, but it was early in the Internet age - that held an election prediction contest every two years.  From about 1996-2004, I did very well in the contest, even won it a couple of times.  For over three decades it was my job to pay attention to politics, and as close as some elections can be, over time it becomes easier to pick up patterns that more often than not lead to anticipated results.  My track record in recent years has not been so good.

But nothing ventured nothing gained, so for your enjoyment (or amusement), here are some peerless prognostications for tonight - focusing on the federal level.

• The Democratic Party will gain 27 seats in the House of Representatives, for a total of 241.
• The Democratic Party will gain 8 seats in the U.S. Senate, for a total of 53.

The way I see it, the main question tonight is how good a night it will be for Democratic candidates.  Put in modern terms, will the blue wave be one that is survivable, or will it be a tsunami that obliterates everything in its path.  Because of my recent track record in predicting elections, if anything I might have been too conservative.

Why do I think this is how things will play out?  (In other words, the "show your work" part of the piece).

• Midterm elections always favor the party that is not in power.  Despite the efforts of the Trump Administration to lay its economic failures at the feet of Joe Biden, that's a hard one to pull off nearly two years after you've been in power.
• Outside of his base, the President is deeply unpopular.  In the political dictionary, look up "Don't make promises you can't keep (or have no intention of keeping).
• The War with Iran is deeply unpopular, and has led to equally unpopular prices at the pump.  
• All the available data on early voting shows massive turnout from the very groups that are angriest about how things have turned out - young voters, Latinos and African Americans being prominent examples.
• The President backed historically bad Senate candidates in races that should have been an easy win for the GOP - See Ken Paxton in Texas (perhaps the single worst U.S. Senate candidate of my lifetime) and Darline Graham in South Carolina.
• The President's policies on immigration and immigration enforcement have driven the very group (Latino/Hispanic voters) that supported him in historic numbers just two years ago completely out of the fold.  And I suspect deeply offending many white Trump voters as well, even if they do not say so publicly.

I could dive deeper, and heaven knows what shenanigans the Trump Administration will try to pull of of its back pocket to muck things up, but that's how I see things playing out.  In twelve hours or so (maybe less) we'll know if I was right.

In the meantime, vote!