This is a breakdown done by the site fivethirtyeight.com gives a look at what could be the ‘spoilers’ for the mid-terms…..

Election Day, the FiveThirtyEight forecast has numbers that won’t surprise anyone who’s been following political coverage. The site gives Republicans an 83% chance of taking the House and a 54% chance of taking the Senate. The site’s Nate Silver, however, runs through three points that will go a long way in determining how Tuesday actually plays out.

• Polling errors: Pollsters generally don’t have a great track record of late, and if they’re off in either direction, the implications are huge. If Republicans beat their polling averages by 3 points, they’re a virtual lock to take the Senate, writes Silver. If, on the other hand, it’s Democrats who beat their averages by 3 points, things are “very rosy” for them. They’d likely keep the Senate and possibly the House, too. Might the polls be biased against either Republicans or Democrats? Yes and yes.

• Turnout gap: If the polls are accurate, then everything comes down to turnout and to which party has done the better job of energizing their voters. Republicans have generally led on this front (not unusual for the party looking to reclaim power), but some major polls this week suggest that Democrats have narrowed if not closed the “enthusiasm gap.” The size of the actual gap on Election Day—ranging, say, from a 6-point gap favoring Republicans to a 1-point gap favoring Democrats—will have big consequences.
• Candidate quality: Republicans should be in a better position in regard to the Senate. “If all races went according to the national environment plus the state’s partisan lean,” we might be looking at a 54-46 Senate in favor of Republicans. But some “relatively weak” candidates have given Democrats a chance. “The GOP may well pay a price for its inexperienced, unpopular and in some cases scandal-plagued candidates,” writes Silver. “Just how much of one could determine which party winds up with Senate control.”

• Read the full assessment, in which Silver acknowledges that “nobody in the polling or election forecasting community has any right to be all that confident about what will happen on Tuesday.”

Few more thoughts for this important day….

There have been multiple warnings in recent days that polling errors and other wildcards could result in midterm election surprises—nonetheless, the final ratings offered by Sabato’s Crystal Ball on the day before Election Day will likely surprise no one. The ratings out of the University of Virginia Center for Politics predict a GOP net gain of one Senate seat, resulting in a 51-49 Republican Senate, and a GOP net gain of 24 House seats, resulting in a 237-198 Republican House of Representatives. As for governorships, the prediction is a net gain of one for Republicans, resulting in a gubernatorial count of 29-21 Republican

A number of closely-watched races have swapped columns: The Raphael Warnock-Herschel Walker Senate race in Georgia started out as a toss-up but is now in the “leans Republican” column. The Arizona gubernatorial race made the same switch. The John Fetterman-Dr. Mehmet Oz race to fill an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania was initially “leans Democrat” and has shifted to “leans Republican.” As for those aforementioned “wildcards,” the site notes that its prediction is the best Democrats can hope for is a night that’s “good but not necessarily great” for Republicans. Politico, in its own final election forecast, has the battle for House control as “likely Republican” but puts the Senate in the “toss-up” column. But the Hill notes that in its final forecast, the Cook Political Report shifted the Senate toward Republicans.

I will be traveling around my area to polling stations to see what is happening…..

Please exercise your right to vote and do so that will make this a stronger and better nation.

Tomorrow may well be a new day!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”