Two Final Gubernatorial Ratings Changes
My final moves of this election cycle are in the race for the governorships. Amid Republican turnout worries in Florida, I’m going to move the race there from Lean Rep to Tilt Rep. I still think Byron Donalds defeats David Jolly, but Republican insiders on the ground there are calling it very close and sounding alarm bells about how the GOP needs really strong Election Day turnout to ensure Donalds wins. They’ve gotten it before and I think they’ll get enough of it – but it’s remarkable to see Republicans sweating in the Sunshine State after eight years of ever-expanding dominance there. Lean Rep > Tilt Rep (hold)
And then there’s Texas. For months, I have believed that state representative Gina Hinojosa can upset three-term incumbent Greg Abbott. The state is replete with problems for Republicans and openings for Democrats. Data centers. Flock cameras. A failed school vouchers program that’s hurting rural school districts. A resurgence in Hispanic support for Democrats, confirmed by truly remarkable early vote turnout. A rebound in support for Dems from Indian-Americans – resulting from Bo French’s racist attacks – who had previously been gravitating toward the GOP in the Lone Star State. James Talarico pulling away from scandal-plagued Ken Paxton in the Senate race. And over the weekend, a high-quality firm’s polling showing the race effectively tied, but with Hinojosa nominally in front. I have always believed it could happen…now I believe it is more likely to happen than not. Tilt Rep > Tilt Dem (flip)
One Last Rating Change in the House
Maybe this is the Obama nostalgia in me, but I do think Tom Perriello – one of 2008’s most remarkable winners – is going to do it again this year and re-take Virginia’s 5th district. He served one term before losing in the 2010 wave while performing admirably in his rather red seat. The district fundamentals say it shouldn’t happen, and in my most recent House post I moved it only to Tilt Republican. But Perriello is a skilled operator, early voting (I know, I know, I always advise caution) shows the college towns are turning out with force in this part of the state, and the very sharpest observers of Virginia elections – the delightfully-named Chaz Nuttycombe and the crew at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, housed within this district at the University of Virginia’s esteemed Center for Politics – think this is going to flip. I’m going to follow their lead on this one.
That brings my projection for the House to 241-194 in favor of Democrats, a net gain of 26 seats (I’m using 215 as their base – 214 seats currently held plus a vacancy in a safe-Dem seat in Florida). Click here for the full November update breaking down 19 other changes.
Senate Ratings Update: Election Eve
The 2026 elections for the United States Senate are of even greater import and suspense than the House of Representatives, where a Democratic majority is all but certain and merely the magnitude is in doubt. The power to control confirmation hearings in the Senate is massively consequential while six-year terms give each victory a lasting durability otherwise hard to find in politics. The suspense, meanwhile, owes to the fact that so many of the competitive Senate races are taking place in states where Democrats have not come close to a win in recent years, and others where high-profile recent misses are embedded in political consciousness (I’m looking at you, Maine 2020). Throughout this election season I have moved cautiously: identifying a wider map from the start, but with a high threshold to actually move a seat into the Democratic column. My early September ratings yielded a 50-50 Senate, with Dems gaining three seats from the current 53-47 Republican majority. A 50-50 tie, of course, still produces Republican control of the Senate, with the vice president casting the tiebreaking vote to organize the chamber. My October 24 update moved another seat into the Dem column, for a 51-49 majority – secure, although some would argue Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman would rescue the GOP with a party switch.
Tonight, I’m making a final set of six changes, all of them in the Democratic direction. There has not been much in the way of encouraging polling numbers for Republicans in the final weeks of this campaign, nor is there much to excite them from early voting data (which we should all be putting precious little stock in anyway) and nor have any Democratic candidates committed a major gaffe down the stretch. No, dear reader, I do not consider the news that Mary Peltola’s campaign was recruiting other guys named Dan Sullivan to get on the ballot a gaffe (it was obvious to most that it was orchestrated, so it’s not really news; it’s also not illegal and I don’t even think it’s unethical. I do think it’s mostly a waste of a campaign’s time and probably runs against the grain for the party that purports to be defenders of democracy. I’d pass on it if pitched to me. That said, it’s mildly funny and Democrats have struggled with being funny for, well, the entirety of my adult life.) And I do not consider the erratic machinations of Haley Stevens in Michigan likely to move votes, especially coming on the Sunday before Election Day in a state with significant uptake in early voting. Here’s what’s actually moving:
House Ratings Update: November is Here
We’re deep into the endgame now, and with that comes my final full-board ratings update for the House of Representatives. There are a few races where a last-minute data point might push a race into a new tier, but this is just about where I’m going to rest my case in the House. This update comes with nineteen moves, all of them in Democrats’ direction. That might seem like a lot, but it’s actually much less than what many of the prominent election insiders have done lately…because they waited longer than I did to start shifting races toward Dems in the first place. Among those nineteen moves, five seats are moving from Tilt Republican to Tilt Democratic – so the big board now shows Democrats gaining a net total of 25 seats over their current 215 (which includes one vacant but safely blue seat).
Here’s how the board looks:
Remarkably, I’m projecting Democrats to end up with five more seats than they had after the 2018 midterms. Democrats are entering these elections with considerably more seats to their name than in 2018 when they had 194, so this smaller projected net gain would still put them ahead of that year. I do not offer this projection this lightly: I entered 2026 expecting Dems to flip the House, but with fewer than 230 seats. But the year has unfolded dramatically, with Trump and his party now in a much worse position than they faced even in 2018. A notable difference this time around? Trump’s handling of the economy is rated poorly whereas he still had positive approval on the economy in the fall of 2018…when his party suffered a shellacking anyway with a net loss of 41 seats in the House. Households are battling stubborn inflation and a dramatic spike in gas prices, and these things stem in large part from Trump (largely supported by his Congressional allies) implementing heavy and erratic tariffs, then starting a war in Iran without realizing our adversary could close the Strait of Hormuz and severely impact oil shipping. Voters understand these causes and effects and are apportioning blame accordingly.
Read more…Gubernatorial Ratings: Pennsylvania through Wyoming
After a day off, we’re back for the final quarter of our state-by-state look at the nation’s 36 elections for governor this year. This one will be on the shorter side, owing to the safe status of several of these contests.
Read more…Gubernatorial Ratings Update – Minnesota through Oregon
Eighteen down, eighteen to go. Welcome to part three of a state-by-state look at each of the races for governor this year. I’m aiming for brevity but trying to provide enough flavor to contextualize each race. This edition’s capsules will be a bit longer, owing to the competitiveness and complexity in as many as seven of these nine races.
Read more…Gubernatorial Ratings Update – Hawaii through Michigan
We keep rolling with our brief-as-I-can-manage look at this year’s governor’s races. Today’s set includes one projected flip in each direction, including my lone projected Republican statehouse win.
Read more…Gubernatorial Ratings Update – Alabama through Georgia
I was not able1 to get a late summer/early autumn post about my ratings for this year’s 36 races for governor online…so this “update” is actually my first piece on them. That said, I’ve been tweaking those ratings for the last two months. So we’ll start with the big board. And then I’ll – very briefly, because there are so many – touch upon each of these contests, where they stand, and why.
Senate Ratings Update – 10/24/26
I haven’t published a Senate update since my September series covering each race in some depth. Let’s start with the big board and then we’ll look at the individual changes.
House Ratings Update
Despite three weeks passing since my last House update, there’s not a ton of changes to make. Frankly, that’s because WTM has been ahead of the other ratings entities: the insiders have spent the last few weeks frantically moving races toward Dems as they finally acknowledge what was clear to some of us over the summer: this is a very Democratic political environment and if anything, it is only getting bluer. The question is really whether it’s simply a year of respectable progress for Dems at the national level (flip the House and a couple Senate seats), or a blue wave (larger House gains and flip the Senate) or a blue tsunami (flipping both chambers, including seats that would have been considered out of reach until a few months or even weeks ago). We’ll leave our Senate update for later in the week and focus on the House today.
First, the big board:
Compared to our last House update, Dems are up two additional seats, from 233 to 235. Dems currently have 214 seats, but there’s a vacant safe-blue seat, so this is effectively a 20-seat net gain. There’s quite a bit of movement within these tiers, though, and it’s all in the Democratic direction. They have spent the last month steadily expanding the playing field while a number of their pickups seem ever more secure.
Read more…