Starting to get a bit of discussion in the general US thread and we're only a week away from the half-way point of the Trump 2 term, in which the US has elections for nearly every other position in their government.

So if you're like me and have an intense interest in the provincial elections of a state on the other side of the planet to most of us (because like me, you're an election nerd), let's open up a topic to cover what could potentially lead to a crippling of the Trump administration's power, as well as get a good sense of where the US is heading after their, let's be honest, absolutely disastrous 2024.

These elections consist of more than you'd think, you have all the state legislatures, several mayorships and important positions in each state. Possibly important for passing that State Popular Vote compact if the Democratic Party gets enough of them.

But of course we're all expecting to read about a few things so...

House of Representatives

The US lower house, currently in near deadlock with a slight Republican majority (219-214), this is widely expected to go to the Democrats who will probably flip 20 or so seats on an average election night. Even that would give them a good command of the lower chamber and block the Trump agenda. Anywhere the Dems can expand the map would be good, though most of it will be in expected territory, watch out for more up-and-coming democratic socialists who seem to have emerged as a full on bloc of candidates - my example pick of one of the promising newbies this year is Melat Kiros who primaried an incumbent Democrat in Colorado's 1st.

Governors

Nationally not as important, but undertalked about as most states have a governorship race, in many cases running alongside an important Senate race, and governors always end up being important national political figures (if they weren't already). Hinojosa winning for the Democrats in Texas would be seismic (if what's happening in the Senate race wouldn't already be seismic), California's race looks as soulless as ever, Florida's Byron Donalds has been distancing himself from Trump in the nation's most red-trending (notable) state, meanwhile Ohio's Vivek Ramaswamy has imploded his campaign in the past week by putting out an ad using his opponent's estranged mother as an attack.

Senate Races

The big one. 2 years ago, most political commentators and election nerds didn't think there was much hope for the Democrats to take the Senate. Since then, the Democrats have done pretty much everything right, or is it more that the Republicans have done everything wrong. Anyway, there are a number of states that are in play that we didn't expect to be.

Georgia and North Carolina would have been good consolation pickups on a bad year, but it looks like Jon Ossoff and Roy Cooper are sailing to victory in both. Minnesota should be fine with the likeable Peggy Flanagan (lt. governor of Walz), even if Minnesota Dems haven't had the best year, and same for New Hampshire. On the likely Republican side, the death of Lindsey Graham has left his underwhelming sister in post, though South Carolina is likely too Republican to be picked up, it could be on the best night. Promising independents in the Trump-friendly states of Idaho, Montana, South Dakota and most importantly, Nebraska, with Dan Osborn returning for another go after 2024, could be more slip-ups for the Republicans, though I'm not holding my breath for any of them. Also in a year where the Democrats are expected to do well, keep an eye out for even more races in the absolute best case, Florida or Mississippi maybe?

Most important races:

Maine: Susan Collins (R*) vs Troy Jackson (D)

Democrats and left-wingers lost a controversial candidate, Graham Platner to scandal, although they managed to replace him pretty neatly with the still left-wing Troy Jackson. Susan Collins is a bit of a political survivor though, so this could go down to the wire.

Iowa: Ashley Hinson (R) vs Josh Turek (D)

Possibly the most likely bit of hope for the Republican side, Hinson is rather unique among Republican candidates in that she's not immediately terrible or scandal-ridden (still bad but in the electable-to-rural-America-and-you-can-posit-that-they-haven't-completely-lost-their-minds way), but we weren't really calling Iowa in play 2 years ago, let's hope it stays that way.

Alaska: Mary Peltola (D) vs Dan Sullivan (R*) vs Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. (R)

Fish queen 🐟 Mary Peltola and best Democrat in Alaska (she's a bit moderate but we accept that in a state like Alaska) returns after narrowly losing her House seat in 2024, as the only Democrat who could put Alaska in play for the Democrats. She's been helped by going up against an unpopular Republican senator who has amusingly had the bad misfortune to have another Dan Sullivan also put his name on the ballot. Even so, this is still a close race, but Peltola has form. I trust she'll make it through.

Ohio: Sherrod Brown (D) vs Jon Husted (R*)

Amazingly, the Democrats managed to convince veteran Brown, who lost his long-held seat in 2024, to run again in this race, which is only happening to fill out the final 2 years of JD Vance's 6 year term, now filled since 2024 by Jon Husted - a Republican who doesn't seem as dislikeable as Bernie Moreno, but still on Trump's side, the race is trending in Brown's favour and this could be a crucial one.

Kansas: Adam Hamilton (D) vs Roger Marshall (R*)

No one was calling Kansas, but the Democrats lucked out in yet another great recruitment of a candidate for a red state like this, a well-known local pastor who has registered with both parties before, but has switched to the Democrats and managed to get the race in play. The incumbent Republican, not used to running defence, hasn't responded very well and on a good night this could be an incredible pick-up for the Democrats. I don't quite believe just yet but it would be fun to see Kansas blue.

Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed (D) vs Mike Rogers (R)

El-Sayed is by some distance my favourite of all the Senate candidates this year. A gifted orator and physician, not afraid to get a bit dirty with mud-slinging his opponents, and a campaign relentlessly centred on affordability and making things better for the average American despite the media's desperate attempts to make everything about his identity, I need him to win. Mike Rogers has form from his close campaign in 2024, but keeps tying himself to Trump, I hope and think that El-Sayed has this. Some commentators think that El-Sayed's leftist credentials will make him have a closer race, but I don't entirely buy that, because it means his skill at driving a message, which is light-years ahead of most Democrats, would count for nothing. If he wins, you could see more from him later on.

Texas: Ken Paxton (R) vs James Talarico (D)

The big one. Texas falling to a Democratic candidate would be existential for the Republicans, and we've been gifted the best circumstances possible - the Republicans ran a bruising primary in which they turfed out the incumbent Cornyn for scandal-ridden useless human (and former AG) Ken Paxton, because he was allied with Trump. The Democrats nominated soft-spoken but energetic Presbyterian (notice a theme?) James Talarico whose ideology is pretty solid and on rhetoric has been doing fantastic. Both sides have spent countless millions on this race, and it'll most likely serve as the centrepiece for these elections - can the Democratic Party take away what was the Republican stronghold and effectively repudiate Trumpism in the process?

Send in your predictions. Who will win? Or how many seats will the Democrats get? What will this mean for America for the second half of the Trump term?

Thanks for the great overview. It doesn't feel right to know all this to such a level of detail but I guess that's why we have the below meme.

I could make some more laudable explanation for what makes it compelling by talking about what it means for the world, but I think what makes US elections particularly compelling to follow from an election nerd POV is that there are lots of American nerds that are easy to find on Twitter, obviously no language barrier, and just a mess of different races and positions (Texas has a 'railroad commissioner' for some reason? You elect judges in many US states???) that are fun to get into the weeds with, with different ways of voting and counting, but all of them have the convenient commonality of eventually coming down to an easy-to-follow two horse race that's really as close as you can get in politics to everyone gets a puppy vs. diarrhoea forever which just isn't as straightforward to draw conclusions from in most other democracies.

Anyway the early vote (in the states where it actually means something*) is looking quite encouraging. There are lots of formerly reliable Republican voters - especially younger white voters and in rural areas - who just aren't turning up yet and are running out of time to do so. We won't really have much of an idea about who's been persuaded to switch their vote until next week, but in some places you can look at what demographics are disproportionately voting so far and which aren't.

*There are some states, like Ohio, where only a minority vote before election day and/or there is no formal Republican/Democrat registration so making a guess at what the final electorate will look like is more of a stab in the dark than it is in Nevada where you have formal registration, or in Georgia where voting is extremely racially polarised so simply getting the ethnic breakdown already gives you some idea.

Edited October 28Oct 28 by Harve

edit: nvm my image posted successfully now

Edited October 28Oct 28 by Harve

Very helpful summary, thank you! I've mainly been looking at various poll predictors here and here, it seems like there's reason for hope. I think the House should be a done deal for the Dems but I'm more concerned about the Senate. The percentage isn't high enough to be confident. I could put up with Trump as a lame duck for two more years but I'm scared what he'll try if he still has power given it's the last time he'll be able to do so.

I'm cautious of reading too much from the polls as 2022 in particular got it vastly wrong on the Republican end where they only narrowly won the House and lost the Senate despite polls saying otherwise (granted this was the first election after Jan 6 and Roe v Wade, I like to think Americans might use this to fully reject the Iran war if it's not hitting them hard enough already), and perhaps gave a bit of false hope that the Dems could hang on for a second term...

I just think they'll cheat with Elon's machines, just enough to keep the seats as they are now.

Trump seems to have been doing everything he can to ensure that the Republicans do badly on Tuesday. That means he can then spend the next two years claiming the elections were rigged (by the people who weren't running them).

Hoping for a Democrat landslide or at least a big enough win to reduce any power the republicans have of trying to pass laws etc.

If you don't believe the polls (fair) then just look at where the parties are choosing to campaign - Trump is spending the evening before election in Lousiana which is the 12th most Republican state (this may be in part be because his presence actually doesn't help in the deciding states where all the money is). Polls may well be wrong but it's not as if Republicans are seeing anything different here.

South Carolina becoming competitive because they replaced Lindsey Graham with his sister is lowkey hilarious. I doubt it's happening but seen today that Fox News (yes I know, but their polling is more credible than the rest of their output x) has shifted to considering it a tossup!

As a fellow 'I read and know way too much about this', it's worth noting that Montana looks like a Senate race that should have been competitive, if not outright one of the most likely pickups, but unfortunately the anti-Republican vote is split between an "independent" (who is basically a Democrat but running without the label much like Dan Osborn) and the official Democrat who has refused to drop out of the race. The Republican is polling pretty badly but he'll do enough to get over the line pretty easily unless everyone gets the message to not vote for the Democrat.

(Also Georgia isn't a pickup, Ossoff is the incumbent, but I'm sure you know that x)

America just shows how two party systems don't work. The parties almost become religious institutions, and people vote for whatever old crap as long as it's wrapped in RIDICULOUS , superficial rallies of red or blue. Not really a good democracy.

16 minutes ago, Brélican said:

South Carolina becoming competitive because they replaced Lindsey Graham with his sister is lowkey hilarious. I doubt it's happening but seen today that Fox News (yes I know, but their polling is more credible than the rest of their output x) has shifted to considering it a tossup!

As a fellow 'I read and know way too much about this', it's worth noting that Montana looks like a Senate race that should have been competitive, if not outright one of the most likely pickups, but unfortunately the anti-Republican vote is split between an "independent" (who is basically a Democrat but running without the label much like Dan Osborn) and the official Democrat who has refused to drop out of the race. The Republican is polling pretty badly but he'll do enough to get over the line pretty easily unless everyone gets the message to not vote for the Democrat.

(Also Georgia isn't a pickup, Ossoff is the incumbent, but I'm sure you know that x)

Was hoping someone would mention the details of Montana, I thought it might be too obscure to put in the opening post but certainly a failure for the FPTP system.

help

also this is looking juicy

like it seems many Democrats in the US, I remember too clearly like... every election recently in the US (bar 2022) and am trying not to get too excited.

(I do ofc know Ossoff is already a senator, I was just skimming through that part of the post, pleased he's looking like getting another term)

1 hour ago, Iz様 🌟 said:

Was hoping someone would mention the details of Montana, I thought it might be too obscure to put in the opening post but certainly a failure for the FPTP system.

help

Oh!

Scenes when Democrats/indies flip North Carolina, Alaska, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina and Montana (I've put those in about the order of likelihood from my perception, I won't go further as much as the idea of Blorida or Blississippi is fun) and yet Susan Collins still hangs on.

Abdul El-Sayed's former primary opponent endorsing Mike Rogers

Lol. Lmao even.

Very much enjoying how the entire Democratic party is rounding on her, casting her out and El-Sayed has had his best fundraising day ever.

May she have helped him to a blowout.

1 hour ago, Iz様 🌟 said:

Very much enjoying how the entire Democratic party is rounding on her, casting her out and El-Sayed has had his best fundraising day ever.

May she have helped him to a blowout.

The CNN interview was absolutely unhinged.

How delicious.

I'm honestly feeling pretty confident for Dems going into tomorrow - EV data has been incredibly positive (namely in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Kansas etc...) and as we all know, polling has been amazing. The polling argument is interesting, because obviously they have notoriously overestimated Democrats in memorable presidential races, but they do tend to be much more accurate in midterm years (2018 being slightly overestimated for Democrats and 2022 being way too bullish for Republicans) which gives me considerable hope in a number of races. The Michigan senate race is honestly just laughable at this point - with Stevens proving how terrible of a candidate she is for a statewide race in the last 24 hours or so, and this whole debacle being followed up with a NYT poll showing Abdul up by 11 points on Rogers (fyi NYT is a very, very accurate pollster). The race is honestly getting wayyyy more media coverage than it should, in comparison to properly competitive races eg in Maine, Alaska or Iowa. I might as well do a little prediction while i'm here...

House:

It would be nearly impossible for the Dems to fumble the house honestly, even though Republicans did gerrymander across the nation which does look like it could backfire in some states (eg potential dummymander loses if a blue tsunami hits North Carolina, Florida or Texas) and will evidently not be enough to stop the house gains. It also looks very unlikely that Republicans will actually gain any seats in the house that aren't due to gerrymandering, with the exception of Maine's 2nd Congressional District - a naturally conservative district where the former Republican governor of Maine is running (but honestly i'd only rate that race as a tilt towards republicans).

Republican Flips: AL-2, FL-9, LA-6, ME-2, TN-9, TX-9, TX-32

Democrat Flips: AZ-1, AZ-2, AZ-6, CA-1, CA-3, CA-22, CA-48, CO-3, FL-7, FL-13, IA-1, IA-2, IA-3, MI-7, MI-10, MO-2, MT-1, NC-11, NE-2, NY-17, NJ-7, OH-7, PA-1, PA-7, PA-8, PA-10, SC-1, TX-15, TX-23, UT-1, VA-1, VA-2, WI-3

Overall: Dems: 243 | Reps: 192

Senate

The senate is obviously a lot closer, but I'd say that Dems have assembled a pretty stellar group of candidates for this cycle. In terms of states Dems need to hold, I'm very confident that they'll hold them all, and I think at this stage we'll probably see Minnesota and Georgia be won by double-digits (funnily enough Minnesota is polling quite close rn but there is absolutely no chance it's competitive when Klobuchar is also on the ballot and the whole ICE fiasco in Minneapolis). New Hampshire and Michigan should be comfortable holds as well - I'd predict the former is held by about 8-9 points and the latter by 5-6 points (also helps that Jocelyn Benson is at the top of the ballot in Michigan!).

Obviously North Carolina will be the first state to flip in this cycle but in terms of an order in which they flip i'd say: North Carolina -> Ohio -> Texas -> Maine -> Kansas -> Alaska -> Iowa-> Nebraska-> South Carolina......

I think overall, I'd probably predict that the Dems flip the senate 53-47 - flipping North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Alaska but honestly there are some true coin flip states here (namely Maine, Alaska, Kansas and Iowa I'd say). Manifesting that this comes true though.

Gubernatorial

Honestly not a huge amount to say here but it looks like Democrats will only lose one governorship in Kansas, which did previously have an unusually popular Democrat governor in a typically solid-red state, although there is probs a 30% chance that Dems could hold that seat. Apart from that Dems are definitely on track to flip the governor seats in Iowa, Ohio, Georgia and even narrowly in Nevada (even though it's a state you'd expect to go blue in a midterm, it does have a very popular incumbent Republican in Joe Lombardo running for re-election). I'm trying not to be really optimistic but Dems even have a chance at the governorship in Texas and Florida, although I've truly lost all faith in the latter state so I doubt it'll happen haha.

Anyways, we NEED Democrats to show up, and I think they just might 🙏

Eve of election predictions. Senate I have 52 in my mind, I'd love a reach for Iowa, Kansas and SC/FL/NE but I expect things to be close even with all the optimism we're seeing.

Tbh this House prediction is a little bullish, but it's a lot of seats to look into. I flipped nearly every competitive district that made any sense at all to a lean Democrat - without looking into too many of the details too closely and if I had any priors at all, it was evaluating it against an important statewide race also going on in the state at the same time, so if you think MT-1 is doable while those ones in NC or MN aren't going anywhere, sure, fine. Numbers probably more important anyway, I think 250 is possible on a good night and I am feeling a potentially good night here.

and then this one, governors, I really raced through but I think Ohio should be pretty solid on governor, Georgia could be a scrape over the line, Texas a heartbreak.

my gut feeling is saying the democrats will flip north carolina, ohio, iowa and kansas, barely loses alaska, texas, maine and nebraska, shock win in south carolina

if the democrats do very well in michigan, ohio, north carolina and georgia, that gives me a bit hope that they can perhaps flip these 4 states in the next presidential election

I think Ohio being competitive again this year is more down to the candidates (Ramaswamy being an awful Republican pick for governor / Sherrod Brown being the best possible pick for the Democrats for Senate), I wouldn't hold my breath on it returning to being competitive in a presidential election any time soon. (Even with the candidates this year it's one I have less faith in than the polls suggest as the state has a history of disappointing)

^Agreed on candidate quality in Ohio (and also Texas, Alaska and Kansas especially) and also while it's tempting, I'm trying not to look too much towards the presidential race yet as that's 2 years away with no serious candidates announced yet, and the results of this election, as well as the actions of the Republican and Democratic parties, will affect it. If it's a rejection of MAGAism, then the Republican party will try a different tack of some sort as the presidential race draws near, and that will have an effect on the sorts of voter coalition they get next time, not to mention completely new candidates on both sides - getting stuck in effectively the same voting makeup for a decade is quite unprecedented and these results are probably breaking with that, which will add context for next time.

The fact that both American parties formed prior to the coalescing of ideology means that they're not as wedded to their current ideologies as most European parties are, for all European soc-dems have trended towards the centre over the past century they're likely never going to go swap with the conservative party and go further right, but that's just what the Republican party did between 1920-1960. Things could switch in unpredictable ways once Trump isn't on the ballot.

dawn of the final day - 5 hours remain (am I crazy enough to stay up? probably not, but also...)