It's Election Day. I'm happy with my predictions of Democratic Senate victory on Facebook over
past months. My reasoning was that the Iran conflict would keep gas prices up, and Trump's mental decline would weigh Republicans down. With gas above $4 per gallon and the first 16 minutes of Trump's big pre-election speech spent on renovations to the reflecting pool, I got some causal factors right. Now we'll see about the outcome.
The 53-47 map from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics seems about right to me. Iowa and Alaska are the ones I'm least certain about, but overall there's plenty of room for uncertainty. I wouldn't be surprised to see Democrats with 51 or 55 seats. Really, anything from 49 to 57 is a possibility, with so many close races and the difficulties with polling.
Nancy Pelosi's latest tweet tells the story about Michigan, where a Democratic primary loser has endorsed the Republican: "Haley Stevens has chosen to dangerously betray Michigan families’ healthcare, freedoms and future with her horrific endorsement of Mike Rogers. Abdul El-Sayed must win — because Michigan and our country deserve better."
Stevens struggled to explain her decision in an interview with Anderson Cooper. She then posted a lengthy explanation on Twitter, which Pangram evaluates as 90% AI. I expect El-Sayed to win, not only because he's a good candidate, but because Stevens hasn't been able to say anything significant against him. Her fiancé Jason Turkish seems to be strong-arming her into this decision, as her former campaign manager and friends speculate. I join their call for campaign fiancé reform.
The other state I'll mention is Kansas, where I was born, and where nobody initially expected the Democrat to lead all polls for the last two weeks of the race. Republican Roger Marshall faces a class-action usury lawsuit for charging his patients illegal 18% interest rates during his 25 years in private medical practice. In a normal year Marshall would probably make it through because it's Kansas. But this is a year where Republicans can't give anyone a good reason to vote for them, and it looks like people won't.
