The final midterms prediction: Republicans will take THREE Senate seats

A final midterms poll projection shows Republicans with a grip on the House majority and picking up three seats in the Senate, with less than 24 hours until millions of Americans start heading to the polls.

In their last prediction based on poll averages, Real Clear Politics has the GOP with 53 Senate seats when the votes are counted and picking up at least 15 in the House races to take their total to 227, with the Democrats winning 174.

Thirty-four races for Congress are still considered toss-ups but it is becoming clear that Republicans have the momentum, despite the Democrats making a small comeback in the closing stages.

President Biden’s low approval and voters trusting Republicans to deal with the economy, inflation and crime have turned the tables towards the GOP in recent months. 

Surveys have also shown white suburban women, black and Latino voters moving to the Republicans, fed up with rising prices and surging violence across the country.

It is a dire sign for the Democrats who focused their early campaigning on abortion – spending more than $300 million on ads on the issue – and the danger the GOP poses to democracy in the late stages. 

More than 40 million Americans have already voted, according to the United States Election Project, far ahead of 2018 levels and suggesting their could be a record turnout. This includes more than 2.5 million in Georgia, despite election new election integrity laws passed that the Democrats suggested could suppress turnout. 

The Senate races are going down to the wire, with the candidates in the key swing states of New Hampshire, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia separated by less than one point in the closing polls.

A final midterms poll projection shows Republicans with a grip on the majority in the House and picking up three seats in the Senate, with less than 24 hours until millions of Americans head to the polls

Thirty-four races for Congress are still considered toss-ups but it is becoming clear that Republicans have the momentum, despite the Democrats making a small comeback in the closing stages

President Joe Biden delivered a chaotic speech from Yonkers, New York two days before the midterm elections where he stumbled on stage and spent a large time interrupting his own speech to interact with the audience 

Dr. Mehmet Oz is ahead of John Fetterman by just 0.1 percent  in the Keystone State in a race that could decide who wins the Senate.

If initial results are that close, it may be days or weeks until the final tally is known, like in the 2020 Presidential election. 

In Georgia, Herschel Walker is ahead of Raphael Warnock by 0.4 percent, suggesting that a runoff election on December 6 is likely.

Politico also has Republicans taking upwards of 15 seats in their final projection while they consider the Senate a ‘toss-up’.

Real Clear Politics have the GOP winning 54 seats in the Senate, but still considers it a ‘dead heat’ 

In the House, results in New York, New Jersey and Virginia could set the stage for the rest of the night.

Democrats Elaine Luria, Jennifer Wexton and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Tom Malinowski in New Jersey are most at risk of defeat in what are considered purple districts.

Rep. Cindy Axne is also bracing for a loss against her Republican rival in Iowa.

Republicans are growing increasingly confident that they can even flip districts in blue areas such as New England and New York, and end the night for the Democrats before it has even began. 

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is facing a tough battle in his Hudson Valley, New York, seat. 

Messaging has been key for both parties during campaigning with historic inflation, rising crime and the surge in migrant crossings.

Third Way, a center-left Think Tank with huge influence among Democrats in Washington D.C., has criticized the party for not caring about what matters most to voters and says liberal candidates are seen as being as extreme as their Republican counterparts.

‘If Democrats manage to hold on to the House and Senate, it will be in spite of the party brand, not because of it,’ Third Way wrote in a memo obtained by Axios.

‘Despite a roster of GOP candidates who are extreme by any standard, voters see Democrats as just as extreme, as well as far less concerned about the issues that most worry them.’ 

California Governor Gavin Newsom also admitted that the GOP has ‘crushed’ Democrats with their messages. 

Audience member and Sarah Lawrence College student Vivian Lipson held up a white bra with ‘Joe Biden’ written in black sharpie on each of the cups at the president’s rally on her college’s campus on Sunday, November 6

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When will result of midterms be in? It could take just hours or almost a MONTH for control of Congress to be known… but beware of red and blue ‘mirage states’ that appear decided before they really are

Though Election Day is just days away, it may take Americans up to a month to know which party will be in control of the United States Congress, 

All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for grabs on Tuesday, as are 35 U.S. Senate seats and 36 governorships.

Republicans would need to pick up five seats to take a majority in the House and just one to control the Senate. Nonpartisan election forecasters and polls suggest Republicans have a very strong chance of winning a House majority, with control of the Senate likely to be closer fought as voters say they are most concerned about the economy.

 A massive wave of Republican support could lead to declarations of victory hours after polls close.

But with dozens of races expected to be close and key states like Pennsylvania already warning it could take days to count every ballot, experts say there’s a good chance Americans go to bed on election night without knowing who won.

‘When it comes to knowing the results, we should move away from talking about Election Day and think instead about election week,’ said Nathan Gonzales, who publishes the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Elections.

The earliest vote tallies will be skewed by how quickly states count mail-in ballots, with some states reporting mail-in ballots results earlier, which could make it seem like Democrats have the lead in the state

Beware of red and blue ‘mirage’ states 

The earliest vote tallies will be skewed by how quickly states count mail-in ballots.

Because Democrats vote by mail more often than Republicans, states that let officials get an early jump on counting mail ballots could report big Democratic leads early on that evaporate as vote counters work through piles of Republican-leaning ballots that were cast on election day.

In these ‘blue mirage’ states — like Florida and North Carolina — election officials are allowed to remove mail ballots from their envelopes before Election Day and load them in vote counting machines, allowing for speedy counting.

But states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don’t allow officials to open the envelopes until Election Day, leading to a possible ‘red mirage’ in which Republican-leaning Election Day ballots are reported earlier, with many Democratic-leaning mail ballots counted later.

Experts like Joe Lenski, co-founder of Edison Research, which will be tracking hundreds of races on November 8 said he will keep an eye on the mix of different types of ballots each state is counting throughout the night.

‘Blue mirage, red mirage, whatever. You just have to look at what types of votes are getting reported to know where you are in that state,’ said Lenski.

So when will we know when the races are won? 

The first wave of vote tallies are expected on the East Coast between 7pm and 8pm ET. An early indication of Republican success could come if the races expected to be close — like Virginia’s 7th congressional district (where Republican Liz Cheney has put her support behind a Democratic candidate) or a contentious U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina — turn out to be Democratic routs.

By around 10pm or 11pm EST, when polls in the Midwest will be closed for an hour or more, it’s possible Republicans will have enough momentum for experts at U.S. media organizations to project control of the House, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

If the fight for the House still looks close as vote tallies start coming in from the West Coast — where there could be more than a dozen tight House races — it could be days before control of the chamber is known, experts said.

California typically takes weeks to count all its ballots, in part because it counts ballots postmarked by Election Day even if they arrive days afterward. Nevada and Washington state also allow late ballots if postmarked by November 8, slowing down the march to final results.

‘If the House is really on the edge, that would matter,’ said Kondik.

It may take longer, perhaps weeks longer, to know which party will control the Senate, with close contests in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia likely to determine final control.

And iIf Georgia’s Senate race is as close as expected and no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a run-off election would be scheduled for December 6, possibly leaving control of the chamber in limbo until then.