2022 Senate

Dear Readers: Tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 23) from noon to 1:30 p.m., the Center for Politics will honor the service of U.S. Capitol Police Officers and D.C. Metropolitan Police Officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 with the presentation of the Center’s first annual “Defender of Democracy” awards. This year’s inaugural award recipients will be Private First Class Harry A. Dunn, Officer Caroline Edwards, Officer Michael Fanone, Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, Private First Class Eugene Goodman, Officer Daniel Hodges, Private First Class Howard Liebengood (posthumously), Officer Jeffrey Smith (posthumously) and Private First Class Brian Sicknick (posthumously). An awards ceremony will take place in the Rotunda Dome Room at 12 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 23. Following the ceremony, the officers and widows of the fallen officers will participate in a special panel discussion about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Doors open at 11:45 a.m. The event is free and open to the public with advanced registration (limited seating remains). The event will also be livestreamed here. — The Editors KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Indications in recent months have pointed to a somewhat mixed midterm result, as opposed to an out-and-out Republican wave, which appeared likelier several months

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — This article updates and applies the seats-in-trouble congressional election forecasting equations to the 2022 midterm elections. — The goal is to use micro level (congressional district and state) competitiveness assessments in combination with their electoral history to statistically generate an accurate prediction of the election’s national outcome. — The seats-in-trouble forecasts for the 2022 midterms are losses for the Democrats of 42 seats in the House of Representatives and 1 seat in the Senate. The seats-in-trouble forecasts With Americans bitterly polarized, the parties within a few seats of each other in the House, and the Senate evenly split, the 2022 midterm election is already one of the most contentious in American history. Across the ideological spectrum, Americans nervously await November’s collective verdict. This article attempts to provide some insight into what that verdict will be with the hope that it can be anticipated and more calmly accepted. Okay, you are right, that is not going to happen — but we can hope. The basis for insight into the midterm is the seats-in-trouble congressional forecasting equations, a pair of hybrid statistical models predicting national party seat change in House and Senate elections. They are “hybrid”

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — A congressional forecasting model using political and economic fundamentals suggests that Republicans are favored to flip both the House and the Senate. — A modified version of the model that also incorporates expert analysis also suggests that Republicans are favored in both chambers, but by less than the model that does not incorporate such analysis. Two different 2022 House/Senate models In order to forecast the 2022 congressional elections, we first draw on our structural model, which we have regularly used to generate before-the-fact forecasts in past midterm contests, namely 2018, 2014, and 2010. The model bases itself on political and economic fundamentals and receives formulation in a political economy equation. For the House, it begins with the classic theory of Edward Tufte, who argued midterms stand as a referendum on the president and the incumbent party. Midterm voters are assumed to judge the president’s actions on key economic and key non-economic issues assessed on aggregate-level data. While these models are appearing in the Crystal Ball around Labor Day, the actual predictions (both for this year and previous years) are based on indicators from earlier in the summer, meaning that these projections are made several