Harris Has Flipped the Script, but Republicans Seem Likely to Take the Senate

Democrats Seem Poised to Have a Slight House Majority

Trying to figure out what’ll happen this fall is an exercise in futility. I’ve long said two things about polling in a presidential election. The first is that national polling doesn’t matter. That one still holds true. National polling doesn’t matter except to gauge nationwide voter sentiment. However, we don’t elect presidents by popular vote, so polling in the states that matter really tells us what to expect come November 5.

The second thing is polling doesn’t really matter until after Labor Day. This is something I heard probably 20 years ago. I don’t remember who said it or where I heard it. I think that was true until the 2022 election cycle. Looking back at the 2022 polling, what we were seeing in August was more reflective of where voters were than the polls we saw in October up to election day. Similarly, I recall telling my Peach Pundit the Podcast co-hosts that the first presidential debate would matter. That was met with some skepticism, but I was right.

Typically, voters don’t really begin to pay attention in an election cycle until after Labor Day. This is because they’re preoccupied with summer, vacations, and the beginning of the school year. Obviously, hard partisans pay attention to politics year-round. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about, for lack of a better word, the “normies.” People who don’t define themselves by their politics. Yes, folks, there are people out there who don’t live and breathe politics.

People seem to be paying more attention to this cycle for various reasons. One reason is that a large and growing number of voters are exhausted by the fringes of both parties. Those voters want a return to normalcy. The fringes of the political parties, who are a larger part of the parties’ respective bases, have become normalized over the past several years. The fringes were once an outlier. Today, they’re driving Members of Congress in a hyper-partisan direction, and thus, nothing gets done. This is much more of a problem on the Republican side than on the Democratic side. That’s not to say it isn’t a problem on the Democratic side.

Another reason is that voters are uneasy and uncertain about the direction of the United States. They don’t know where we’re heading, and no candidate or party is really providing them with an optimistic, believable vision for the future. They hear promises on the campaign trail, but just about everyone knows that consensus in Congress is rare because of hyper-partisanship.

Unless there are 218 votes in the House and 60 votes in the Senate to overcome procedural hurdles, campaign promises involving legislation are dead on arrival. This is why I haven’t been super bothered by the Christian nationalist elements of Project 2025, although I’m adamantly opposed to them. There are actually a few things I agree with in the document, but those things are limited to Veronique de Rugy’s piece on the Export-Import Bank, Kent Lassman’s case for free trade, Paul Winfree’s reforms to the Federal Reserve, and a few other things like tax reform, Medicare modernization, and Medicaid reform. Unfortunately, there’s not much in the document about Social Security modernization, which is a larger problem than Medicare and Medicaid.

Still, the parts of Project 2025 that require action by Congress, including the Christian nationalist culture war nonsense, aren’t going anywhere because the votes aren’t there, especially in the Senate, regardless of which party is in power.

Although Project 2025 has proven to be an effective messaging tool for Democrats, Harris’s appeal to Gen Z voters is boosting Democrats down-ballot. That may be what puts them over the top in the presidential race and House races.

2024 House Races: There’s not much in the way of polling to guide us here, but what we do know is that Republicans are very worried about keeping their majority. Democrats only need to flip six seats to take the majority. Generic congressional ballot polling doesn’t tell us a lot right now. Democrats have a slight edge, but it seems like it could go either way.

Prediction: Democrats win enough seats to have a slim majority, probably in the range of 219 seats to 222 seats. I’m not confident in that prediction at all. (Note: I’m reassessing my predictions each time I post, so this is subject to change later.)

2024 Senate Races: We seem to be in the same place we were when I last wrote about the Senate races. There has been some narrowing, though. Right now, I expect Democrats to keep Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Nevada has moved away from Republicans.

The harder races to figure out are Montana and Ohio. If you demanded an answer, I’d say Ohio stays Democratic. In Montana, look, Sen. Jon Tester has survived everything Republicans have thrown at him since he first won the seat in 2006. However, he’s won a majority of the vote only once, in 2018. Is Tim Sheehy a better candidate than Tester has seen in the past? Can he do what Republicans failed to do in 2012 and 2018? It’s hard to say. We need more polling to see, but it looks good for Republicans right now. Sheehy has led in every recent poll, one inside the margin of error and one outside of it.

Republicans, however, will definitely pick up West Virginia. No question there. Virginia will stay blue. Right now, Texas looks like it’ll stay in Republican hands. Some thought Rep. Collin Allred (D-TX) would give Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) trouble, but only one poll, which is now more than a month old, showed Cruz up by less than 5 points. A couple of recent polls showed Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) with a lead of 4 points over his opponent, former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL). Scott barely won his race in 2018. He is, however, independently wealthy and will spend his own money.

Prediction: Republicans are on pace to pick up two seats and take control of the Senate, but that really hinges on Montana, and I’m not confident that Republicans will take the seat, although recent polls are good for them. (Note: I’m reassessing my predictions each time I post, so this is subject to change later.)

2024 Presidential Election: More states are in play than in June, and polling in every state has swung toward Harris. Based on recent polling, Georgia and North Carolina now appear to be back in the toss-up column because of the change at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Harris looks much better in Arizona. Nevada still looks good for Trump, but his lead has narrowed. Wisconsin is trending toward Harris. A bombshell poll out of Michigan had Harris up 11 points, but that’s an outlier. Other polls show a more competitive race, but one with a slight lead for Harris.

I’d said before that Pennsylvania is where the race will be decided, but with Georgia and North Carolina back in play, Harris doesn’t have to win Pennsylvania as much as Trump does. Still, it’s hard to see the winner of the race not taking the Keystone State. Polling out of Pennsylvania is all over the place, but some show Harris with decent leads.

Another factor that will play into all of this is Trump’s lack of focus. His rambling speeches, in which he focuses on personal attacks against Harris rather than issues, are going to hurt him. He’s campaigning to his base and not independent voters, which is to his detriment. Without a major course correction and a message against Harris that sticks, Trump is in danger of another loss.

Prediction: I think the odds right now are on Harris’s side. She has all the momentum heading into the Democratic National Convention, and she’ll have a post-convention bounce that’ll last at least a week. The race is close, though. September is going to be a make-or-break month for Trump. If he hasn’t righted the ship by the end of September, Republicans will need to pour all their resources into Senate and House races. (Note: I’m reassessing my predictions each time I post, so this is subject to change later.)