Usually the wave doesn’t crest until a few days before an election. The undecideds and Independent votes crystallize around one candidate or party at the last minute. For the 2022 midterms, two weeks before the election, it appears the wave has started and will continue to build unabated. The undecideds have decided, and its going in one direction. One-time “safe” Democrat candidates are now “lean” Democrat. Recent “lean” Democrat candidates are now “toss-ups”…and so on. You get the idea. Races once considered safe in blue states for Democrats are now nail-biters.
Think back just a few months, following the Supreme Court ruling basically cancelling Roe v Wade. The left thought they had their flicker of hope. Conventional wisdom had them losing possibly 20-30 seats, as is often the case in a midterm election. A number of mostly left-leaning pundits thought the court decision could even create a situation where the GOP gaining control was not a certainty. They were sure a huge jolt of adrenalin would energize the abortion-crazed leftist and send them sprinting to the polls en masse.
Today? That issue barely registers in any polls. What a change! The news keeps getting worse for the Democrats, and if you want to identify a defining reason, look no farther than that old pillar of a democratic republic…the debate.
In almost every instance, the conservative candidate has pounded their leftist counterpart, if they’d even to agree to debate in the first place. We got a taste of what was to come, two years ago, when Glenn Youngkin took it to Clintonista Terry MacAullife in Virginia. Fast forward to last weeks New York gubernatorial debate, Republican Lee Zeldin embarrassed liberal incumbent Kathy Hochul. He was game-ready, forceful, and relentless. She was meek, unprepared and pathetic. After Zeldin laid into her about New York’s appalling crime problem, the best Hochul could do was “I don’t know why that’s so important to you.” Similar mismatches occurred in Michigan, Pennsylvania (Dr Oz) and Georgia. And course, Arizona where the pitiful Democratic candidate for governor, Katie Hobbs dodged Kari Lake. Well...it was probably a good thing.
Lake, a former news anchor would have humiliated Hobbs. And why is that? The main stream media never, ever challenges the progressive elites. The candidates rarely get a tough or embarrassing question from their journalistic cohorts. The elite ruling class and their minions have grown soft. They only read or watch MSM news outlets, getting the sense that their side is dominant. They are not battle-hardened like the Republicans. The GOP candidates look down the barrel of a gun nearly every day. They need to be sure about their positions, their responses. Their arguments need to be air-tight. There is no better debate prep than getting peppered with questions from the antagonistic regime media which shares the exact same world view as the Democratic candidates. The leftist media thinks they are doing their comrades-in-arms a favor by giving them a pass on indefensible policy positions, when in reality they are setting them up for failure.
Besides the battle-readiness issue, the right will always win in the arena of ideas. The left resorts to ad hominem attacks, because they are bereft of solid policy positions. Abortion and screaming “racist” is all they have.
There is still over a week left until the election, and as mentioned, the trends look good for the Republicans and it might be time to put yourself out there, and predict who wins and by how much. First off, I’m not going with the pollsters, I’m going with the bettors. They are right much more often than the polls are (think YouGov and Politico---not even close). In 2016, the day before the election, the betting line favored Hillary, but before the polls closed on that Tuesday, the betting line favored Trump. In 2020, the bettors picked Biden to win Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. The odds were very narrow, but they picked it right. Bettors pick up things pollsters miss, like who has college degrees and who talks to pollsters. Here are some numbers from one betting house. Oz 54% chance to beat Fetterman, Lake 82% chance to beat Hobbs. The fun betting lines to follow are Predictit and Electionbettingodds.com. Jump on every now and then to get the real low down.
My Picks
Senate GOP 53-47 GOP Picks up NV, AZ, and GA, and hold others.
House GOP 237-198 Seeing some movement against McCarthy for Speaker. Jordan is moving up in the betting.
Let me know yours. Just put them in comments and I’ll think of a fun prize for whoever comes closest.
The MSM Has Made GOP Candidates More Resolute, Democrats Enfeebled