The Morning after Michigan

The fight over control of the U.S. House now takes on even greater importance now that Democratic chances of recapturing a Senate majority have effectively evaporated.

Democrats’ Cruel Senate Math

With the U.S. Senate currently split between 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats, and a Republican holding the Vice Presidency (which doubles as the President of the Senate), thus able to break a 50-50 tie in favor of the GOP, Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win a majority.

The four-seat gain threshold needed for a change in control is contingent upon Democrats not losing any of their own seats; realistically, only four of the 13 Senate seats the party has up for grabs this year have any realistic chance of being lost. The only Democratic incumbent in any jeopardy is Jon Ossoff in Georgia; the three others are open seats in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. All four of those states are competitive, but given the current political environment, “light blue” states like Minnesota and New Hampshire are seen as less likely to turn over than the purple states of Georgia and Michigan. The Red, Blue, and purple designations are generally based upon presidential voting; a good case can be made that New Hampshire is more of a purple, swing state than a blue state, having a propensity to elect GOP governors and state legislatures. Any loss for Democrats in these four or, for that matter, any of the other nine Democratic seats up would raise the number of GOP seats needed to be captured.

Of the 22 Republican seats that are up, only seven are currently seen as either competitive or potentially competitive, with just one in a blue state, Maine, where Susan Collins is seeking a sixth term in Maine, and one seat in a purple state, the open seat in North Carolina where Thom Tillis is not seeking a third term in real jeopardy. The other 20 are in states that are in varying shades of red: Florida, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, South Carolina, and Kansas. It would be difficult for Democrats to win three of these; four would be significantly harder. If Democrats had to make up for one lost Democrat-held seat, five would seem extremely unlikely. Keeping in mind that the best predictor of a general election outcome in a Senate, House, or governor race is the outcome of the previous presidential election in that state or district, those 20 seats after Maine and North Carolina were all won by Trump in 2024 by double-digit margins.

Election Night Calls

Early Wednesday morning, NBC News Election United called the Michigan Senate race for Abdul El-Sayed, the former Wayne County health director; while the Associated Press, CBS News, and CNN labeled it “ too early to call,” and Fox News “too close to call.” The Associated Press called the race for El-Sayed at 9:54 am ET, with the results at 10:00 a.m.: 48.5 percent for El-Sayed and 47.5 percent for Rep. Haley Stevens.

Many ask, what is the difference between “too early to call” and “too close to call?” As much as that may sound to a layman as semantics or splitting hairs, to those at the Associated Press election night decision desk and their counterparts at ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, and NBC News, there is a distinction. The “too early to call” designation means that more votes need to come in before a determination can be made, not necessarily that the margin between the two candidates is particularly wide. “Too close means that there are an insufficient number of votes between the leading candidate and the trailing candidate(s) that either candidate could still realistically win.

A number of factors go into these determinations, including how many uncounted votes remain, where those votes are, whether there is any expectation that the uncounted vote is more likely to skew toward one particular candidate, are uncounted votes coming from areas that are epected to skew in one particular area, whether the current vote count is consistent with the results in predetermined sample precincts, if there is an exit poll, or survey results and finally, whether the vote results are consistent with the “priors:” (a Bayesian statistical term), what based on the assumptions and expectations that existed before the vote counting began, based on prior voting patterns. Are the outstanding, uncounted votes expected to skew in the direction of one candidate, and is the vote count consistent? All of these elements go into a decision of whether there are enough uncounted votes that the trailing candidate could realistically overcome the leader. This is how the Associated Press explains their process. https://apnews.com/ap-race-calls-faq

Since the 2000 Bush versus Gore election night disaster, all of the networks have become even more cautious than before, not wishing to get egg on their faces or network executives fired as a result of a bad call. After that 2000 fiasco, the word went out to the network decision desk teams that while coming in first was desired, never being wrong again was of even higher priority,

Michigan

The Motor State has a well-deserved reputation for being a swing state, along with Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But even in a purple, competitive state, a party nominating a candidate from well outside of the mainstream, can tip a state decidedly in one direction, as was seen in Arizona in 2024 with Kari Lake in the gubernatorial and Blake Masters in the Senate race, Georgia 2022 with Hershel Walker for Senate in in 2022, Tudor Dixon in Michigan’s 2022 gubernatorial race, Mark Robinson in North Carolina in 2024, in the 2022 Pennsylvania races for Governor, Doug Mastriano and Senate, Dr. Mehmet Ozin 2022. Being in a purple state does not guarantee a fair or realistic chance of winning.

Conclusion

Now, only the fight for control of the U.S. House stands between a Republican hegemony for the second half of Trump’s term and at least partially divided government. While Ossoff in the Georgia Senate race and former Gov. Roy Cooper in the open seat race for Senate in North Carolina are both doing as well or better than Democrats could possibly hope, and both open Democratic seats in New Hampshire and Minnesota doing reasonably well, the party holding onto light blue Maine and purple Michigan are huge concerns, meaning that Democrats need the political equivalent of a royal or straight flush in the vulnerable and potentially vulnerable Republican-held seat to win a majority.

Democrats remain the favorite for capturing the House majority, though it is unlikely that their majority will be particularly wide, in part a reflection of an evenly divided country (see my last column for a discussion of the utility of the generic Congressional ballot test for projecting House outcomes).

All eyes go back to the House.