Likely outcome one: Democrats prevail in California statewide elections.
Likely outcome two: most ballot measures lose.
Likely outcome three: Republicans win a majority in the US House.
Other outcomes are harder to predict because of polling challenges:
- Most people have caller-ID, either through cellphones or landlines. And most people won't answer calls from unknown numbers.
- Partisan nonresponse bias.
- Screening for likely voters is an inexact science.
- And all of these issues come in addition to the regular margin of error (plus or minus 2 or 3 points). So any race in low single digits is a tossup.
Senate tossups: average poll margins (as of this morning)
- Arizona: Kelly (D) 1.3%
- Georgia: Walker (R) 0.4%
- Nevada: Laxalt (R) 1.9%
- New Hampshire: Bolduc (R) 0.3%
- Ohio: Vance (R) 3.3%
- Pennsylvania: Fetterman (D) 0.2%
- Washington: Murray (D) 3.0%
- Wisconsin: Johnson (R) 3.2%
If all the tossups go R, Republicans get a net gain of 5.
If all tossups go D, Democrats get a net gain of 3.
Prospects for 2023:
In California, the political alignment is clear, but the economic outlook is cloudy. A stock market downturn could severely affect state revenues.
In Washington, divided government will hinder basic decisions such as passing spending bills and raising the debt ceiling.
Expect lots of investigations. Some Republicans will push for Biden's impeachment.
