An already turbulent national political environment was rocked by another major development Wednesday afternoon: Justice Anthony Kennedy, the closest thing there is to a swing vote on the Supreme Court, decided to retire. President Donald Trump, who already got to appoint conservative Neil Gorsuch to the court after Senate Republicans decided not to consider then-President Barack Obama’s replacement for the deceased Antonin Scalia in early 2016, is now poised to pick a second justice, and one who likely will push the court further to the right. This comes on the heels of several key, 5-4 decisions released at the end of this year’s Supreme Court term that broke against the court’s liberal bloc.

From a jurisprudential standpoint, this is a nightmare for the left. Trump seems likely to pick a Gorsuch-style conservative for the seat, and Republicans have been building a judicial farm team for years after the disappointments they suffered in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years, when GOP high court selections sometimes did not turn out to be as conservative as many on the right would have wished (Anthony Kennedy was one of those justices). Trump, a president obsessed with his base voters who delights in antagonizing Democrats, does not seem like someone who will opt for a more consensus choice.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who sees pushing the judiciary to the right as a top priority while Trump is president and the GOP controls the Senate, is also a skillful tactician who likely will try to both get a new justice confirmed and also use the vacancy as a weapon against red state Senate Democrats, of whom there are quite a few on the ballot this November. Any Democrat who votes for this new nominee will anger a certain percentage of Democrats even in very red states. These Democratic voters may choose not to show up at the polls or may stop donating money to express their displeasure. Or, if the red state Democrats vote against Trump’s pick, they might energize more Republican presidential voters to turn out and support their GOP opponents. In McConnell’s calculation, heads they lose, tails they lose.

McConnell knows all this. He doesn’t care all that much how Democratic senators end up voting on the justice-nominee so long as he can keep his own caucus together. Assuming a vote before the midterm — McConnell said the Senate will vote on a replacement “this fall” — the majority leader will attempt to make each red state Democrat pay a dear price on Election Day whether they vote for or against the nominee. Meanwhile, Republican strength in the Senate is fragile: because of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) absence due to poor health, the Senate is functionally just 50-49 Republican now. Will any GOP senators object to the nominee? It’s possible, albeit unlikely. (As usual, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky come to mind — though the blowback from a “no” vote would be severe from a huge majority of their own party’s people — who have been eagerly waiting for a Supreme Court takeover for years.) Even if Republicans lose the Senate, they hypothetically could still confirm a justice in the post-election lame duck session, although that may be a risky game that McConnell won’t want to play. On the other hand, McConnell has proved many times he’s perfectly willing to take the heat as long as he delivers dinner from the kitchen.

Political questions — unanswerable now — abound. When will the vote be scheduled: before or after the midterm? Probably before, but maybe not. If the new justice is confirmed before the midterm, will it only juice turnout on the left because the right will be satisfied and the left outraged? Already, rank-and-file Democrats are tweeting that the most important midterm in their lifetime has become leagues more significant with the Kennedy vacancy. Or does this court vacancy help Republicans make up what seems to clearly be an enthusiasm deficit compared to Democrats? This enthusiasm bump could be larger if the vote was near to Election Day, or afterwards. Then again, in this too-much-news era, almost everything fades from public memory after a week or two.

That the vacancy seems very likely to help Republicans cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for years — decades? — to come seems clear. The political consequences in the short term are more uncertain, and given that we’re all just beginning to digest the news, making sweeping pronouncements about how this will change the midterm calculus seems unwise.

There will, of course, be an argument as to whether the decision by McConnell and Senate Republicans to stonewall, for nine months, Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland in 2016 means that the Senate should wait six months, until 2019, to consider this new vacancy. Partisans will argue about the process and hypocrisy, as they must to keep the other side accountable, but ultimately, the judicial nomination game has become one of pure and raw politics. And as one of us has taught students for years, “Hypocrisy is the lifeblood of politics.”

Senate Republicans — who held the majority in 2016 and had no formal, legal obligation to confirm an Obama appointee or even hold hearings on him — played power politics on the last vacancy and won. They can and almost assuredly will do the same this time. When the tables are turned politically and there is a future Supreme Court vacancy, we should expect Democrats to do the same. And if a vacancy comes in a time of divided control of the presidency and the Senate, that vacancy may go unfilled for longer than Scalia’s seat did, perhaps even years.

There is no constitutional mandate to fill a court seat quickly, or at all. Also, as has happened several times in U.S. history, Congress and a president can change the number of seats on the Supreme Court. If there is a Democratic president and Congress in the 2020s, and the conservatives still rule the roost on the court, don’t be surprised if there is an effort to expand the court’s size. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried and failed to do this in 1937, but a future attempt may have a different fate. We’ve all learned in the previous few years that political rules are made to be broken.

The modern procedural arms race over judicial nomination norms, which one can trace all the way back to the Senate Democrats’ successful defeat of Robert Bork in 1987 (Kennedy ultimately got that seat), shows no signs of abating. This will be another vicious fight at a time when the nation is deeply divided and partisanly polarized. It’s not going to be pretty or fun.

Editor’s Note: The Crystal Ball is taking the week off for Thanksgiving next week, but we’ll be back with another edition on Thursday, Dec. 1.

Now that we’ve had a week to digest the results of the 2016 election, here are some observations about what happened and what the results might tell us about the future:

1. Electoral map tilts to the GOP

In close elections, the Electoral College will probably continue to tilt to the GOP. Twice in 16 years, we’ve had a “misfire,” where the popular vote went to one major-party candidate while the other candidate secured a majority of the electoral vote. This is because Democrats secure large, sometimes enormous, majorities in mega-states such as California, New York, and Illinois, while Republicans have just Texas, where Donald Trump’s margin of victory was nearly 450,000 votes fewer than Mitt Romney’s. (You should never join “just” with Texas, but we trust you’ll see what we mean.) Other sizable states, such as Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia, are closely divided and add only small pluralities to the candidate that wins them.

While the cumulative popular vote means nothing under the Constitution, it is not a good thing for a president to have lost it. The powers of the office are the same for every chief executive, yet it is almost impossible for a president to claim a mandate when many more people voted for the opponent. Democratic candidate Al Gore secured a national plurality of 547,000 votes in 2000; as of Wednesday afternoon, Hillary Clinton has 1.2 million more votes than Donald Trump, and that gap is very likely to grow.

Most Americans have long favored abolition of the Electoral College, designed for the 1790s rather than the 21st century. However, no one expects to see the Electoral College go the way of the horse and buggy anytime soon. It is also fair to note that if there were no Electoral College, the campaigns would have been run differently, so we can’t automatically assume that Hillary Clinton would have beaten Donald Trump under a popular vote system.

2. The map gets more competitive

Because the 2016 contest was far closer than either 2008 and 2012, the number of states decided by five points or less increased from four in 2012 (Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia) to 11 in 2016 (shown in the map below). But the nation’s polarization is still obvious, and only six states flipped from Democratic to Republican (Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and probably Michigan) — and none in the opposite direction. At least we can say that the playing field was more broadly competitive, and especially so until the final GOP consolidation behind Trump in late October and early November. For a while in the fall, Arizona, Georgia, Utah, and a few other states appeared to be tightly contested, and even on Election Day Arizona and Georgia ended up being less Republican than Iowa and Ohio. We may be at a time of transition in the Electoral College where the whiter Midwest gets redder and the more diverse Sun Belt gets bluer.

Map 1: Electoral College results and margins of victory

Source: Data from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

3. Projections miss the mark

With credit to 270toWin.com, here is the final Election Day forecast for a range of sites and news organizations. No one was even close to the final Electoral College results. The Crystal Ball actually had the largest allocation of electors to Trump (216) but we were in a three-way tie for the second-most electors assigned to Clinton (322). This will be a year pundits and predictors will want to forget, yet none of us should. There are many lessons to learn, and we all need to do much, much better in the future.

Table 1: 2016 Electoral College projections as compiled by 270toWin.com

4. Many polls were off, but some provided clues in the key states days before the election

By the time all the votes are counted, the RealClearPolitics average of national polls that showed Clinton winning the national popular vote by about three points probably won’t be all that far off — Clinton may win it by a point or two or somewhere in between. But many of the state-level polls missed the mark, and missed badly, particularly in the Rust Belt. Hardly any polls showed Trump leading in several of these states the whole election, and yet Trump’s one-point wins in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and even narrower lead in Michigan, which the Associated Press has yet to officially call, ended up being the difference in the race: had Clinton carried these three states, she would have won with 278 electoral votes (as it stands now, if Trump carries Michigan he’ll end up with 306).

But there were some signs. A Republican pollster, the Trafalgar Group, released polls of Michigan and Pennsylvania showing Trump with tiny leads. Another Republican pollster, Harper, showed the race tied in Pennsylvania. It’s hard to believe partisan polls before Election Day, but they are sometimes correct when a contest is breaking their party’s way late, as appears to have been the case in 2016.

Additionally, Ann Selzer, the respected nonpartisan Des Moines Register pollster, had Trump up seven points in Iowa in a poll released the Saturday before the election. Trump ended up winning Iowa by nine points, and it looked like a Trump state for much of the fall, but Selzer’s poll could or should have been a warning about other Midwest states. If Iowa were truly going for Trump by that large margin, it probably meant that states like Michigan and Wisconsin — states filled with many of the same working-class white voters who would power Trump to victories across the Heartland — were going to be very close, which they were.

5. Michigan: Poor urban turnout tells the tale

Despite doing significantly worse outside of Wayne County (Detroit) than Barack Obama, if Hillary Clinton had replicated the margin the county provided any of the last three Democratic presidential nominees (342,000, 441,000, and 382,000 in 2004, 2008, and 2012, respectively), she would have carried the state. As of the most recent count, Clinton is losing Michigan by about 13,000 votes, with only about a 289,000-vote margin in Wayne, about 53,000 votes worse than John Kerry’s.

6. But not necessarily in Pennsylvania

A vital part of the Democratic formula in Pennsylvania is getting a huge margin out of Philadelphia County, particularly in recent years when some typically reliable Democratic counties in Appalachian western Pennsylvania have deserted the party. Unlike in Detroit, where Clinton’s sagging margin was likely decisive, Clinton did acceptably in Philadelphia. Her margin in Philadelphia was about 457,000 votes, down from Obama’s 479,000 and 492,000 in 2008 and 2012, respectively, but a decent win, and markedly better than John Kerry’s 412,000-vote margin in 2004 (Kerry won Pennsylvania).

Clinton also outperformed Obama in Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), adding about 15,000 votes to Obama’s 2012 margin. So why did she lose the state by about 66,000 votes? Because outside of Greater Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and its closest suburbs, she lost by huge margins.

Leaving aside Allegheny and Philadelphia counties, Barack Obama lost the rest of Pennsylvania by about 273,000 votes. Clinton lost the rest of the state by…wait for it…629,000.

A great example of Clinton’s struggles outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia is Lackawanna County, a white, working class enclave that contains Scranton. Obama won the county by slightly more than 25 points in each of his elections, but Clinton won it by only three percentage points. Clinton also lost Erie County in the northwestern corner of the state — it swung from Obama +16 to Trump +2. There are similar eye-popping swings across the state. Brandon Finnigan of the election results-reporting site Decision Desk HQ has argued for years that Republicans had a path in Pennsylvania, and he was proven correct thanks to the giant shift that the Trump candidacy effected in the Keystone State.

7. Or Wisconsin

The Wisconsin story is similar. Clinton lost the state by about 24,000 votes, but her combined margins from the state’s two Democratic powerhouse counties — Milwaukee and Dane (Madison) counties — were almost identical to Obama’s margins in 2012. Clinton’s margin dipped a bit in Milwaukee from Obama but she did better in Dane than Obama, and she only lost about 800 net votes from Obama in those two counties combined, effectively a wash. Outside Milwaukee and Dane, Obama lost Wisconsin by 97,000 votes. Clinton lost outside of Milwaukee and Dane by 333,000 votes.

To win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2020, Democrats are going to have to work to reverse some of the transformation outside of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Madison. Both states have what should be highly competitive Senate and gubernatorial races in 2018, and the performance of the small cities and rural counties that swung hard from Obama to Trump will be interesting: Will they stay Republican without Trump on the ballot, or will they revert to their Democratic roots?

8. Ohio: Bellwether no more?

Ohio voted for the presidential winner for the 29th time in 31 elections. That’s the best of any state in that timeframe, which the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik explored in his book on Ohio, The Bellwether. Additionally, Ohio built its lead over its other competitors for the “bellwether” title in this election because the states with the records closest to Ohio’s — New Mexico, Illinois, and Nevada — all voted for the Electoral College loser (Clinton) in this election.

However, Ohio may be trending Republican and away from being the nation’s top bellwether. Trump won the state by 8.5 points at the most recent count, while Clinton was winning by at least one point nationally. Ohio will be further from the national average in this election than it has been in any election since before the New Deal. Part of being a bellwether state is not just voting for the winner, but also voting close to the national average — something that Ohio has done consistently for decades but did not do in this election.

As we observed before Nov. 8, if the changes Trump made to the electorate this year are durable, Ohio may be the new Missouri: a longstanding bellwether state that in recent years has clearly trended Republican. (Speaking of Missouri, which voted for the presidential loser only once between 1904 and 2004, the state had its biggest Republican lean relative to the national result in this election since the Civil War.)

9. Why Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia didn’t flip

While the Rust Belt largely abandoned the Democrats in 2016, albeit by very small margins in some of the aforementioned states, states with newer Democratic leans like Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia held fast for Clinton. There are two demographic factors that likely help explain why this occurred, particularly in comparison to the three Rust Belt States that crucially flipped for Trump: nonwhites, especially Latinos in Colorado and Nevada, and college-educated white voters. Helpfully for Trump, the exit polls found that white voters without a college degree made up pluralities of the electorates in Michigan and Wisconsin and were about even with white college-educated voters in Pennsylvania. Although Colorado had a smaller nonwhite share than Michigan, its electorate had a large plurality of white college-educated voters. Virginia also had a plurality of whites with college degrees and a sizable nonwhite share of the electorate. And Nevada had a plurality nonwhite electorate, the largest nonwhite share of the states in question, helping Clinton overcome the slightly larger share of voters who were white without a college degree in the Silver State.

As of the most recent count, Clinton won Colorado by a little under five points, Virginia by a little over five, and Nevada by about 2.5 points.

Table 2: Exit poll data for shares of electorates in Rust Belt trio and Sun Belt trio

Source: CNN

10. The increasing urban-rural divide

The political split between more urban and more rural areas only grew in 2016. In 2012 Mitt Romney carried just four of today’s 50 most populous counties. Donald Trump carried the same number of localities, but with four changes. Romney carried Salt Lake County, UT — not shocking given his Mormon faith — and Orange County, CA. Trump lost both places — notably, Orange County had not voted for a Democrat for president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. But unlike Romney, Trump carried battleground Pinellas County, FL along the important I-4 corridor in the Sunshine State, as well as Suffolk County, NY, at the eastern edge of Long Island.

Table 3: 2016 and 2012 presidential vote in the 50 most populous counties as of July 1, 2015

Note: 2016 election data as of Nov. 16, 2016

Source: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, Associated Press (IL, MA, ME, MS)

Among the largest localities in the country, Trump did worse overall than Romney while making up ground in places with smaller populations. Clinton performed about 0.5 points better (California still has many votes left to be counted) in the 50 counties in Table 3 than Obama did in 2012, but Trump performed about four points worse that Romney in the same group. However, in counties around the country with populations below 200,000 people, Trump improved about 4.5 points on Romney’s 2012 performance while Clinton did 7.5 points worse than Obama.

11. Appalachia continues to trend away from the Democrats

Democrats have been losing ground in Appalachia, a working-class and overwhelmingly white region that stretches from western New York to northern Alabama and Mississippi, for years. The most obvious early sign was George W. Bush’s victory in West Virginia in 2000. In 1988, West Virginia was just one of a handful of states to vote for Democrat Michael Dukakis, but by Bush’s first election it had become more Republican than the nation, and its GOP lean has only grown. Trump’s pro-coal, anti-internationalist, “America First” campaign seemed optimally suited for Appalachia, and the results bore that out: Trump won West Virginia, the only state which is fully contained in Appalachia, by nearly 42 points (his second-best state margin, behind only GOP stalwart Wyoming).

Clinton won only 6% of all the Appalachian counties, down from the paltry 8% that Obama won in 2012. As is clear from Table 4, Democrats used to do quite well in the region, but now their support in the area is largely confined to places like Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), some majority-minority counties in Alabama and Mississippi, and liberal college enclaves like Athens County, OH (home to Ohio University) and Tompkins County, NY (home to Cornell University and Ithaca College).

Table 4: Selected Democratic presidential performance in Appalachia 1976-2016

Note: Counties included are the 428 counties and independent cities classified as part of Appalachia by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Appalachia, as defined by the commission, covers all of West Virginia and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Meanwhile, some of the swings in these counties were stunning. In Ohio, Obama lost Pike County, a small, historically Democratic county that in recent years has voted Republican by small margins for president, by a single vote. Clinton lost it by 36 points. Monroe County, another tiny Ohio county that has been so Democratic for so long that the Whigs (the precursor to the Republicans) called it “Dark Monroe” because they had such trouble winning it, was one of only two counties to vote for beleaguered Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ed FitzGerald in 2014 (although it did vote for Romney). Clinton lost it by 46.5 points.

Clinton’s collapse in the region not only helps explain her very poor showing in Ohio, but also her surprising loss in Pennsylvania. Here’s another way of looking at the Keystone State: 52 of the state’s 67 counties are classified as Appalachian, and these counties cast 44% of the state’s total votes in both 2012 and 2016. Obama lost the Appalachian counties by about 175,000 votes. Clinton lost them by about 492,000.

Overall, Trump won Appalachia by an astounding 63%-33%, improving on Romney’s 60%-39% edge in 2012.

12. Democrats more dependent on nonwhite voters

Considering Clinton’s struggles among white working-class voters, seen most clearly in the results in many parts of the Rust Belt, it should be no surprise that the election results suggest that Clinton’s coalition showed greater reliance on nonwhite voters than even Obama’s did. Just consider a simple correlation between Democratic percentage and the nonwhite citizen-voting-age population of U.S. counties. In 2012, that correlation was .48, which is moderate but not remarkably strong. Fast forward to 2016 and the correlation grew to a stronger .61. These data indicate that larger nonwhite populations corresponded to better Democratic performance in 2016 than in 2012. Below is a scatterplot of the 2016 data.

Chart 1: Scatterplot of county nonwhite CVAP share compared to 2016 Democratic vote percentage

While the exit poll suggested that Trump did better among black and Latino voters than Romney, other data have called those findings into question, including this stronger correlation. Furthermore, the reverse is also true for non-Hispanic white areas, with a slightly stronger correlation between the share of non-Hispanic white population and support for Trump compared to Romney (.54 in 2016 versus .46 in 2012). Additionally, counties with large Latino populations saw Republican vote support drop two-to-three points while Democratic vote performance stayed closer to 2012 or even improved by a point or so. (We will return in a future Crystal Ball to the dimensions of Latino backing for Trump. It is very probable that the exit poll overestimated Trump’s strength with Latinos.)

13. The third party fizzle

Ultimately, what happened to Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party is what happens to most third-party candidates: They fade at the end. Johnson flirted with 10% national support for much of the race but ended up with just 3.3% of the national vote, while Stein got 1% despite reaching nearly 5% in the RealClearPolitics average in early summer.

Map 2 shows Johnson’s level of support by state. As is common for Libertarians, he did better west of the Mississippi than east of it, and his best state, unsurprisingly, was his own state of New Mexico, where he got 9%.

Map 2: Gary Johnson’s level of support by state

Stein’s best states weren’t surprising either. She did best in the liberal states of Hawaii (where she got nearly 3%) as well as Oregon and Vermont. Stein’s total votes in Michigan and Wisconsin were greater than the margin Clinton lost each state, so had the Stein backers in those states voted as a bloc for Clinton instead, she would have carried each state (although Clinton still would have lost the Electoral College).

Map 3: Jill Stein’s level of support by state

Note: Stein was not listed on the ballot in Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

14. Straight tickets for Senate

The 2016 election saw the largest wave of straight-ticket results for president and Senate since the ratification of the 17th Amendment established popular election of senators across the country in 1913. All 33 states with Senate elections decided on Nov. 8 backed the same party for president and Senate. Although Louisiana’s final outcome won’t be determined until it completes a Dec. 10 runoff election, Republicans are heavily favored to retain it; should state Treasurer John Kennedy (R) win, that would mean 34 of 34 states voted for the same party in presidential and Senate races.

The 100% straight-ticket mark for 2016 is the highest ever, narrowly outdoing 1920’s 97% mark, and it comes on the heels of three presidential cycles (2004-2012) where the straight-ticket percentage had been about 80%. The closest any state came to having a split-ticket result was in New Hampshire, where Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) lost by about 1,000 votes (less than 0.2 percentage points) to Sen.-elect Maggie Hassan (D), the state’s outgoing governor.

Chart 2: Percentage of straight-ticket vs. split-ticket presidential-Senate outcomes, 1916-2016

Note: Includes all states where both the presidential and Senate races were won by major-party candidates

15. Do the Republicans have new targets in the House?

Before the election, we speculated about the possibility of some white, working-class House districts with Democratic incumbents potentially producing a massive House upset because of their swings to Trump. While there were no upsets, there were a few close calls. Reps. Tim Walz (D, MN-1) and Collin Peterson (D, MN-7) had closer-than-expected races as their districts swung hard to Trump, as did Rep. Matt Cartwright (D, PA-17). As the National Republican Congressional Committee plots its targets for 2018, some of these districts might get special attention. On the flip side, Democrats will be looking to 2018 as an opportunity to make gains in the House, and at this early date, as unlikely as it may seem today, we would not rule out the possibility of Democrats grabbing the roughly 25 net seats they would need to take control. Simply put, midterm elections are often a backlash vote against the president’s party, and with Trump in the White House, history suggests the opportunity is there for the Democrats, even on a national House map that has given them headaches in recent years thanks at least in part to Republican control of redistricting in many swing states following the 2010 census.

16. Democratic losses in the Age of Obama

As we pointed out after the 2014 midterm election, the Democratic bench has taken an unprecedented hit during President Obama’s time in office. The numbers have worsened slightly following Obama’s final election as a part of the political environment. With most 2016 results in (adding projections for some uncalled races based on who is ahead at this point), the damage is as follows: a net loss of 13 governorships, 11 Senate seats[*], 63 House seats, 949 seats in state legislatures, and 29 state legislative chambers. Some other modern presidents lost more governorships, Senate seats, and state legislative chambers, but none has lost more net House seats and — especially — state legislative seats. Having lost close to 1,000 (!) seats in legislatures around the country, the Democratic Party has a weak bench from which to groom future party stars for higher office. Table 5 lays out the comparable losses — and in some cases victories — of other modern presidents compared to the outgoing one.

Table 5: Down-ballot wins and losses for modern presidents

Notes: *Obama’s gubernatorial starting point includes Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), who was appointed secretary of homeland security in January 2009. Jan Brewer (R) became governor. The 2016 data includes results based on current vote counts for some contests that have not been called. Senate data do not include independents or members of third parties caucusing with president’s party. Having become states in 1959, Alaska and Hawaii’s data are not included prior to John Kennedy. Until Minnesota changed its law in 1973, Minnesota and Nebraska had technically nonpartisan legislatures (Nebraska still has one today). Therefore, Minnesota’s state legislative data are not included prior to Ronald Reagan, and Nebraska’s data are excluded throughout.

[*] Jan. 4, 2017: Correction — originally calculated based on 57 Democratic senators after the 2008 election minus 48 after 2016. But the 2008 figure does not include the two independents who caucused with the Democrats at that time, so neither should the 2016 figure, meaning it should be calculated with 46 Democratic senators after 2016. Thus, 57 minus 46 is 11.

Well, what can we say — we blew it.

We thought the signs pointed to Hillary Clinton winning the White House. We thought that even if she lost Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, her Midwestern “firewall” of states that not only had voted for Barack Obama twice, but hadn’t voted for a Republican since the 1980s, would hold for her. It didn’t — Trump blew a hole in what we dubbed “Fortress Obama.” Remarkably, this all happened while Clinton was winning Virginia by a larger margin than Obama did in 2012 and almost certainly winning the national popular vote.

Every two years, we put out an update after the election asking, “How did we do?” Well, let’s see:

President

Do we really have to get into it? OK, fine.

We wrongly insisted for months that Clinton was always leading the race and never put her below 270 electoral votes. As of this writing, Trump won 279 electoral votes to Clinton’s 228, according to NBC News projections. We missed the following Leans Democratic states: Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. We had Wisconsin as Likely Democratic, yet Trump also carried it. Two other Leans Democratic states — Michigan (where Trump leads) and New Hampshire (where Clinton leads) — remain uncalled, as well as Arizona, where Trump leads and we rated as Leans Republican.

Senate

Our big miss was Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R) reelection in Wisconsin (we had him as an underdog for more than a year). Additionally, we did not pick Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) to hold on — Toomey won a close race and Ayotte is narrowly trailing and may be headed to a recount in New Hampshire with Gov. Maggie Hassan (D). We picked a 50-50 Senate; it will be 52-48 or 53-47 Republican. We picked the other 31 races correctly with New Hampshire outstanding.

Governors

Remarkably, Trump rolled in West Virginia and Clinton dominated Vermont, yet both states elected governors from the other party, as predicted here. We missed Indiana’s open seat race, where Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) will replace Vice President-elect Mike Pence (R), as well as New Hampshire’s open-seat contest, where Executive Councilor Chris Sununu (R) narrowly defeated fellow Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern (D). Overall, we got nine of 11 right, with one remaining uncalled race in North Carolina — we picked state Attorney General Roy Cooper (D), who is slightly ahead.

House

Given the size of the Republican victory nationally, we overshot on a Democratic gain of 13 seats. Currently Democrats have netted six seats, according to Politico, and several races remain uncalled in California, where votes will trickle in over the next several weeks. We’ll update the final tally in the coming weeks.

We heard for months from many of you, saying that we were underestimating the size of a potential hidden Trump vote and his ability to win. We didn’t believe it, and we were wrong. The Crystal Ball is shattered. We’ll pick up the pieces starting next week as we try to unpack what happened in this election, where there was so much dramatic change from just four years ago.

We have a lot to learn, and we must make sure the Crystal Ball never has another year like this. This team expects more of itself, and we apologize to our readers for our errors.

After a nearly two-year campaign — kicked off in December 2014 by Jeb Bush (remember him?) — we’ve come to it at last. Election Day is less than 24 hours away.

And we know why you’re here: You just want the picks.

So let’s cut to the chase. Table 1 shows our final selections for the Electoral College, Senate, House, and the governorships.

Table 1: Crystal Ball 2016 election projections

Let’s start with the presidency:

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College projection

Despite some wobbles along the way, we’ve favored Hillary Clinton as the 45th president of the United States ever since we did our first handicapping of the Clinton vs. Donald Trump matchup back in late March. The edge we had for her back then has eroded a little bit at the end — we had her as high as 352 electoral votes, and in the final tally we have her down to 322, with 216 for Trump. If this is how it turns out, Trump will fare 10 electoral votes better than Mitt Romney, and Clinton will do 10 electoral votes worse than Barack Obama in 2012 — 11 or 12 if rogue Washington electors follow through on their threat to refuse to vote for Clinton (but we can’t assume that at this time).

The two closest states here are North Carolina and Ohio. For a long time, it appeared that Florida was a shakier state for Clinton than the Tar Heel State, but our sources indicate that the Sunshine State looks somewhat brighter for her now, although both should be tight. Meanwhile, Ohio may be a real Toss-up state. Buckeye history and demography point to Trump, but Clinton’s ground operation could come through for her in the end. If Ohio does vote for Trump while he is losing the White House, it will be just the third time in 31 elections that Ohio will have voted for the loser. We’re picking that to happen, but if Clinton gets any benefit out of James Comey’s final (?) intervention into campaign 2016, it may be that it generates a tiny bounce that allows her to leapfrog Trump in the Buckeye State. Arizona and Iowa seem like heavier lifts for Clinton but her campaign still holds out hope in both. Ultimately, we think North Carolina and Ohio are the hardest calls in the Electoral College, so we think it makes the most sense to just split them.

The buzz in the final days has been about a late Trump play in Michigan. He will likely eat into traditional Democratic margins there, but remember that Barack Obama won the state by nearly 10 points in 2012 (450,000 votes). Trump’s climb there is steep, but out of an abundance of caution we’re moving the state from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. We’re doing the same thing in New Hampshire, where some polls were close last week (although many operatives do not believe the state is tied), and Pennsylvania, two states (like Michigan) that have very little early voting. Clinton is focusing on these states at the end, too, and with good reason. If Trump pulls an upset, it’ll probably be because he narrowly fought off Clinton in Florida and North Carolina and managed to spring a shocker or two in the Rust Belt.

Florida may tell us a lot about whether we’re going to have a long night or a short one. About two-thirds of voters will likely have cast their ballots early, so the vote count should not take that long. If Clinton wins the state by two or three points and is declared the victor early on, it’ll be hard to find a plausible path to Trump victory. If Trump captures the state, though, then we’ll have to see if her firewall states, like the aforementioned states of Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, as well as Colorado, Nevada, and Virginia, come through for her.

In the prognostication business, what you predict at the end — when the drift of the year is usually fairly clear — is less significant than what you predict months before, at a time when the future is foggy. Starting in March, we have released a total of 17 Electoral College maps in the Clinton-Trump race. Not even on Clinton’s worst campaign days did we ever have her below 270 electoral votes.

THE SENATE

Map 2: Crystal Ball Senate projection

We’re forecasting Democrats to win control of the Senate, but only by the slimmest of margins.

Overall, we’re picking a net gain of four for Democrats in the Senate, which results in a 50-50 tie in Congress’ upper chamber. If we’re right about the presidential contest, that means Vice President Tim Kaine (D) will be breaking ties after Inauguration. Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) would appoint Kaine’s replacement in the Senate (long-serving Rep. Bobby Scott, an African American, is the likeliest choice). If there is an evenly divided Senate, the next important date will be Nov. 7, 2017, when the Old Dominion will hold a special election for the remainder of Kaine’s term in office (that seat also will be up for regular election in 2018). There’s also the potential for a party change that alters the Senate’s leadership if it is indeed 50-50.

The most likely gain for Democrats will be in Illinois, where we expect Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D, IL-8) to defeat Sen. Mark Kirk (R). The incumbent was always going to have a difficult time winning in a presidential year in a safely Democratic state. Although his path appears more difficult now than it did for much of the cycle, ex-Sen. Russ Feingold (D) is our pick to win in Wisconsin over the man who defeated him in 2010, incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson (R). Should Feingold win, he will become the first former senator to win back his old seat against the candidate who beat him since Sen. Peter Gerry (D-RI) in 1934. In Pennsylvania, we project Katie McGinty (D) to defeat Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in a hard-fought race. Toomey strategically tacked to the middle on some issues while in the Senate, notably gun control, but his Democratic opponent has led most polls since mid-October, giving McGinty a small but discernible edge. Perhaps our toughest call where we are picking a Democrat is the New Hampshire contest between Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) and Gov. Maggie Hassan (D). Ayotte should run ahead of Trump, but we think it won’t be quite enough in the end for her to hold on. Count this as one of the races we are least certain about.

As for the seats that we expect the parties to retain, the most competitive ones are in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, and North Carolina. In Nevada, state expert Jon Ralston writes that the early voting edge for Democrats suggests that the party has an advantage up and down the ticket. If this is right, the day after Election Day will be yet another bad one for many firms that polled Nevada and showed good numbers for Republicans. In light of what we see in the Silver State, we are going with former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D) over Rep. Joe Heck (R, NV-3) in the only endangered Democratic-held seat.

We see Republicans retaining the other competitive seats. In Florida, we project Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R) 2015-2016 political journey to end in reelection after running for president and not intending — at least publicly — to run for Senate again if he failed in his White House bid. As we have discussed many times, Rubio doesn’t appear to have suffered much collateral damage among Latino voters in the Sunshine State because of Trump, running well ahead of his party mate among that demographic. Should Rubio defeat Rep. Patrick Murphy (D, FL-18) by only a narrow margin, there will be recriminations in Democratic circles for failing to go hard after Rubio, especially because he still has presidential ambitions that could reignite circa 2019.

When he entered the Indiana race to win back his old seat, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D) had about $10 million in his campaign war chest and was immediately judged a slight favorite. He might manage a narrow win, but we think it’s more likely that Rep. Todd Young (R, IN-9) will defeat Bayh once the votes are tallied. The Hoosier State’s Republican lean, the relatively strong performance expected by the Trump-Pence ticket (Pence is, after all, a Hoosier), Bayh’s troubles on the campaign trail, and the commitment by GOP forces not to give up on the state just because of Bayh’s candidacy led to this projected outcome.

Many national Democrats view Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander (D) as a potential star in the party, but while his strong campaign has made the Missouri race very close, the Show Me State’s GOP lean — with a large margin for Trump creating some statewide pull — is probably going to be too much to overcome. Thus, we are picking Sen. Roy Blunt (R) to win reelection there.

Lastly, in one of the hardest calls of the cycle, we are picking Sen. Richard Burr (R) to hold onto his North Carolina seat in what has become a closely watched contest against ex-state Rep. Deborah Ross (D). Should he win while Clinton carries the Tar Heel State, Burr would be only the second North Carolina senator to win while the opposite party wins at the presidential level.

If we’re off on the total number of seat changes, we think it’s slightly likelier that Democrats get to 51 or 52 than Republicans. That could mean the Democrats pulling out a win in Indiana, Missouri, or North Carolina. If Republicans hold on to the majority, it probably would be because Ayotte survives in New Hampshire.

THE HOUSE

Table 2: Crystal Ball House ratings

Note: Seats shaded in blue are currently held by Democrats; seats shaded in red are currently held by Republicans. We are projecting that Democrats will win 15 seats currently held by Republicans and that Republicans will win two seats currently held by Democrats for a net Democratic gain of 13 seats.

For many months, we have predicted a Democratic gain of 10 to 15 seats in the House, far short of the 30 they needed to take control from the Republicans. While there are quite a few Toss-up style seats, we do not see them falling in one direction, and we’re sticking with our projection. After allocating the Toss-ups based on the opinions of our sources and, frankly, a lot of educated guesswork, we’re projecting a Democratic gain of 13 seats. That’s notable because it would exactly roll back the gains the Republicans made in the 2014 midterm, when they netted 13 seats. If this is how it shakes out, Republicans would have the same 234-201 majority they had after Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012.

A 13-seat gain is also about what we should expect based on the House generic ballot polling, which ranges from Democrats leads of about a point (RealClearPolitics) to a little under four points (HuffPost Pollster). Based on a model by Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz, a small Democratic generic ballot edge of a few points roughly amounts to a low double-digit gain, which backs up our projection.

As we’ve noted previously, if Hillary Clinton wins the White House but Democrats do not capture the House, which is what we’re projecting, she could be the first Democratic president ever to face a House controlled by the opposing party during her entire term in office, whether she serves for one or two terms. Democrats would need to net 17 seats to win the House in 2018, but history suggests that midterms almost always break against the president’s party in the House.

THE GOVERNORS

Map 3: Crystal Ball gubernatorial projection

Even though Democrats already face a 31-18 deficit in control of governorships (one is held by an independent, Bill Walker of Alaska), they face a difficult task on this map just making sure they don’t lose any additional ground. Of the seven truly competitive seats this year, just two of them are held by Republicans. So Democrats would be pleased if our projection comes true: that they come out of this election with as many governorships as they held going in.

Of the seven leaning races we have now, we’re only reasonably confident in a few of the picks. Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT), armed with the power of incumbency, has seemed like a favorite all cycle even in a red state. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT), amazingly, appears very well positioned to win the governorship in the Green Mountain State, a one-time GOP state that will give Clinton one of her biggest margins on Tuesday. Vermont is very open to electing Republican governors, though, and outgoing Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) has been a drag on Sue Minter, the Democratic nominee. One caveat about Vermont: If no one gets over 50%, the legislature picks the governor, although past precedent suggests that they would pick the plurality vote winner (and both candidates have vowed to respect the popular vote).

Meanwhile, we’re making a mirror opposite kind of pick in West Virginia: The Mountain State could be Donald Trump’s best state in popular vote percentage, but Democrats still have a pulse statewide, which could help businessman Jim Justice (D) get over the finish line. One small factor that could aid Justice: The state recently did away with straight-ticket voting, which in the year of Trump is probably a good thing for Democrats in West Virginia.

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) has stormed back at the end, but we still see Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) as a narrow favorite. New Hampshire could be a straight ticket state, which might benefit Executive Counselor Colin Van Ostern (D) against fellow Executive Counselor Chris Sununu (R). We see a split in two open red state seats by narrowly favoring former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens (R) in Missouri and 2012 nominee John Gregg (D) in Indiana. Perhaps there’s a “time for a change” dynamic that could provide a tiny boost to Greitens and Gregg: Jay Nixon (D) is leaving the Missouri governorship after two terms, while Republicans have held the office in Indiana for three straight terms (one-term Gov. Mike Pence couldn’t run for reelection after taking the GOP’s VP slot, and he was preceded by the very well-regarded two-termer Mitch Daniels). Voters can tire of one party in the state’s top job just like they can tire of one party in the nation’s top job.

Of these picks, we’re least sure about Indiana, Missouri, and New Hampshire.

CONCLUSION

At the end of the campaign, we believe we owe our readers our best possible judgment on how each race will go, which is why we leave no Toss-ups, even though many of these races truly could go either way. We’ll inevitably miss some calls — just not too many, we hope.

We deeply appreciate all the help we have received in a thousand forms in this latest election cycle. To our readers, sources, and student interns, THANK YOU. The remaining errors are ours alone. As our motto goes, “He who lives by the crystal ball ends up eating ground glass.”

Hillary Clinton has picked an awful time to hit one of the rough patches that has plagued her throughout the campaign. Now with just days to go until Election Day, there’s added uncertainty about the outcome. But while she may not be on the brink of an Electoral College win the size of Barack Obama’s in 2008 or even 2012, her position as the clear frontrunner in this race endures.

Now, granted, some of this is, for her, bad luck and poor timing out of her control: The “Comey Effect,” referring to FBI Director James Comey’s controversial decision to inform Congress of new emails potentially related to the bureau’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server, has put a dent in Clinton in the final stages of the race, although the contest was tightening in some ways before the news. The campaign’s actions also tell us that there must be at least a little bit of alarm in Brooklyn: It is putting some advertising money (not huge amounts but very noticeable) into some states that the campaign has largely ignored in recent months, like Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Trump has also campaigned in these states recently and has said he is advertising in those states.

The pro-Clinton interpretation of these moves is that the campaign is so flush with cash that they can afford some last-minute spending to block Trump in these states; the anti-Clinton view is that the campaign is panicking and took some of these states, all of which are basically must-wins for Clinton, for granted.

The good thing for Clinton is that there are few signs that her leads in these states are evaporating. Recent polls of all of these states show Clinton retaining a lead, and not just by a couple of points. A much-anticipated survey from the Marquette University Law School, a solid Badger State pollster, found Clinton up six points, largely unchanged from its last survey several weeks ago. A handful of Pennsylvania polls had Clinton up around four points, not that much different from Obama’s 5.5-point margin in 2012. And a Washington Post/George Mason University poll found Clinton up six in Virginia.

Additionally, while polls are all over the map in North Carolina and Nevada, we still see Clinton as a tiny favorite in each state, neither of which is truly a must-win for her to reach 270 electoral votes.

Therefore, while Democrats are quite right to be nervous about the outcome, we as handicappers do not at this point believe there is enough of a compelling argument to believe that the race is truly a Toss-up, let alone that Trump is favored. Does that mean Trump can’t win? Of course not: If some of the national tracking polls showing a tie, like surveys from ABC News/Washington Post and IBD-TIPP, are correct, than the election may truly be something of a jump ball, because in a tied national race we don’t see any additional “blue wall” defense for Clinton in the Electoral College. In a very close or tied national race, states like Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and others could become Toss-ups too. We just don’t think that’s where we’re at, and state-level polling continues to show Clinton leading in all of those vital states.

We spend a great deal of time examining poll averages. But it may also be worth examining the preponderance of polls that back one side or the other, regardless of margin. Based on RealClearPolitics’ state-level polling data for 2004, 2008, and 2012, the candidate leading the most polls in a given state usually wins said state. In those three election cycles, there were just three cases where the candidate who led in a plurality of all polls taken from Sept. 1 to Election Day did not go on to win the state: Wisconsin in 2004, Indiana in 2008, and Florida in 2012. There was also one instance where there was a dead-even split in the number of polls led by each candidate: New Mexico in 2004.

In 2004 John Kerry won the Badger State by just 0.4 percentage points over George W. Bush. This was a touch surprising because Bush led the polling average by about one point. The incumbent had also led 66% of the polls surveyed there from Sept. 1 to Election Day while Kerry had the edge in just 24% (the rest were tied). In 2008 Barack Obama carried the Hoosier State by only one point, which was remarkable given Indiana’s traditional Republican lean. In that case, Obama had led just 32% of the polls from Sept. 1 on while John McCain had the edge in half of them. Obama also carried Florida by the skin of his teeth in 2012 despite Mitt Romney holding the edge in 49% to Obama’s 46% of the polls taken in the same timeframe. Lastly, the closest state by margin in 2004, New Mexico, saw an even split between Bush and Kerry in the number of polls they led there, with Bush carrying it in the end.

Outside of these exceptions, the person leading in a majority of a state’s polls has won that state in the past three presidential elections. Naturally, this finding comes with caveats: First, small sample sizes must be kept in mind. While Florida had 57 polls in the Sept. 1-Election Day time period in 2012, the New Mexico example in 2004 had just 12. Moreover, we are considering data from three elections, which is not a big batch. Second, RealClearPolitics’ poll inclusion/exclusion policy is important — how the site decided to include partisan polls and ones using new methodologies has changed some. Third, 2016 is not necessarily going to be much like the 2004-2012 contests, in part because third-party candidates are likely to win a far larger share of the vote than in any of those three previous cycles. The national third-party take ranged from 1%-2% of the total vote during the 2004-2012 period, whereas Gary Johnson and Jill Stein alone combine for 6.7% in the current RealClearPolitics national average. This creates more uncertainty in the race, as does a healthy percentage of undecided voters.

As for what the “poll preponderance” rule of thumb may mean for 2016, let’s examine the 16 states RealClearPolitics includes as battlegrounds, shown in Table 1 below. Since Sept. 1, Clinton has led every four-way poll (including Johnson and Stein) in Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. She has also led at least 80% of the polls in Maine and Minnesota. With the Wisconsin 2004 example in mind, the next four states are certainly of interest. Clinton has led 75% of the polls in Colorado, 70% in Florida, 69% in North Carolina, and just 50% in Nevada. Thus, while we favor Clinton in a couple of these states, we are in a zone where her larger number of poll leads doesn’t necessarily create much certainty.

Table 1: Total polls led by Clinton and Trump in RealClearPolitics battlegrounds since Sept. 1

Source: RealClearPolitics as of Wednesday (Nov. 2) afternoon

Meanwhile, Trump has led 63% of Arizona polls and 60% of Ohio surveys since Sept. 1. And Clinton hasn’t led a single poll in Georgia, Iowa, or Missouri, though the Hawkeye State has — somehow — the same number of polls (five) in this time period as less competitive Minnesota.

This has some bearing on our ratings changes in these states, which are all in Trump’s direction.

First of all, we’re pushing all of Idaho, Indiana, Missouri, and South Carolina from Likely Republican to Safe Republican. These were always total reach states for Clinton, and in a more competitive national environment Clinton has no chance to win them. There is some indication that the Comey Effect and Trump’s relatively less controversial close to the campaign are bringing some Republicans home. Monmouth University polled both Indiana and Missouri and found Trump up double digits after he was struggling in their previous surveys. We’re also moving Georgia from Leans Republican to Likely Republican — while the state’s demographics are changing in ways beneficial to Democrats, the Peach State is just a bridge too far for Clinton.

Moving from Toss-up to Leans Republican are three states where the Clinton campaign is still heavily engaged: Arizona, Iowa, and Ohio. The Grand Canyon State seemed gettable for Clinton as of a week or two ago, but while the state has a growing Hispanic population that should weigh heavily against Trump next Tuesday, we sense Arizona is returning to its Republican roots. That’s despite Latino turnout nationally reaching potentially record levels next Tuesday, according to Latino Decisions.

Meanwhile, Iowa and Ohio have seemed demographically favorable to Trump for months, and a number of trends, including polling and early voting data, suggest a Trump lean as Clinton’s national fortunes have dipped a bit. Across the nation, early voting trends have hinted at potentially reduced enthusiasm for Clinton among African Americans as Obama leaves the scene. That is a major problem for Clinton in Ohio, where black voters make up somewhere around an eighth of the electorate, or at least they should for a Democrat to win. If that dips a point or two, Clinton is in real trouble. It’s no coincidence that Clinton is personally hitting the Cleveland area hard at the end here, including holding a rally with rapper Jay Z on Friday. Democrats are hoping that their field operation can help them turn things around in Ohio in the final days.

Lastly, while we admire an upstart underdog — and Evan McMullin’s conservative insurgency in Utah qualifies — we think a little additional Republican unity across the board should be enough to get Trump over the finish line in Utah, even though the Republican share of the presidential vote there could plummet 30 points or more from Mitt Romney’s lofty 2012 showing (72.5%) in what is a competitive three-way race. Clinton may finish third in Utah, a rarity for a major-party candidate. She wouldn’t be the first Clinton to do that: Bill Clinton finished third in Utah in 1992, trailing George H.W. Bush (first) and Ross Perot (second). It was one of two states where Perot was the runner-up, the other being Maine (Clinton won it, Bush was third).

These new ratings leave just 31 electoral votes’ worth of Toss-ups: The big prize of Florida (29), and two votes in Maine and Nebraska’s second congressional districts. Our sense right now is that Florida is a total Toss-up, while Trump may have an edge in the two districts, but we’re not ready to lean any of them yet.

Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings

Table 2: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings changes

We’re holding at 272 “hard” Safe or Likely electoral votes for Clinton, and an additional 21 electoral votes leaning to her (Nevada and North Carolina). Trump is now at 214, better than Romney’s 2012 total of 206, but also without a clear path to add the 56 additional electoral votes he needs to get to 270. Again, even adding Florida, the two Toss-up House districts, and Leans Democratic North Carolina and Nevada would only get him to 266.

We also have one major change to our Senate ratings. We’re pushing one of our Toss-ups, Pennsylvania, to Leans Democratic. Katie McGinty (D), Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) former chief of staff, now appears to lead Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in Pennsylvania. Several recent polls show McGinty running roughly even with Clinton in Pennsylvania, a very good sign for her in the late going. The geographic pattern of the McGinty/Toomey vote versus the Clinton/Trump contest might be interesting: Toomey should be able to do better in Greater Philadelphia than Trump, who is very unpopular there, but McGinty may run a little bit ahead of Clinton in more blue collar parts of the state that are traditionally Democratic but where Trump may improve on typical Republican performance. Still, if this is turning into a coattail race, Toomey finds himself in a tough spot.

Finally, a quick word on the House: While Clinton still looks OK in the presidential race, it appears that the door has finally and completely been shut on the prospects for a Democratic House majority. Clinton just does not appear capable of providing the lift required to put Democrats in range of a 30-seat net gain, and House generic polling averages don’t indicate a wave is coming in the lower chamber. There are all sorts of reasons for that, one of which is the power of incumbency, as Alan Abramowitz demonstrates in a companion Crystal Ball piece this week.

We will make calls in all the Electoral College, Senate, House, and gubernatorial contests in our final pre-election Crystal Ball on Monday.

Map 2: Crystal Ball Senate ratings

Table 3: Crystal Ball Senate ratings change