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I am genuinely surprised that the polls insist on a Democrat sweep at this stage.
Aside from Gas prices (which are trending down?) and a few bad candidates in races, the GOP is pretty well situated and the base seems motivated!
So I actually have some bets on some Prediction markets that there's a likely stronger Republican showing than expected, especially in Texas. Regardless of how 'bad' Paxton is, its just truly hard to imagine a Dem waltzing to victory there.
Which... we've already seen that the polls can have such a bias. As you're suggesting, if the polls have a bias AND any theoretical electoral fraud machine is crippled, we should honestly expect a narrow Republican victory rather than the certain blowout they allege is brewing.
Trump and Co. sure seem to be acting like they expect a good outcome.
So yeah. I will slightly update my priors on 'electoral fraud is a systemic problem and it impacts national elections' in favor of "true" if the Dems have an underwhelming night.
Wanna bet?
YES! As stated, I've placed bets, although zeroed on more specific races/outcomes.
What are your odds on the midterms swapping control of both House and Senate?
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The Trump administration has been extraordinarily chaotic. And dysfunctional. Also war.
Chaotic, maybe. Dysfunctional, hardly. You couldn't have asked for better performance on the core goal of the administration. They have completely closed the border and have deported 1 million people, accelerating over time. No one could have predicted that level of success. IMO, they earn an A+ on that issue, and it's the most important issue.
Deporting 1 million people in 1-2 years sounds like a success until you consider that somewhere between 5 and 20 million people entered under Biden. So at best he's falling short of reversing the change wrought by the previous admin and at worst he's bailing water from the lifeboat with a spoon. That's assuming you only care about illegal migration specifically; if you have a problem with H1Bs then it's even worse than that.
What are you even talking about? He has cracked down on H1Bs as well. You just want the impossible.
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Second most important. The most important always will be cost of living. And the only way I could characterize the Trump foreign policy signature issue - tariffs is difunctional.
Immigration is by far the most important for Trump (and also for me and the health of the country).
Though people might say affordability is the most important, it was always a fake crisis that the party out of power uses as a cudgel for the party in power. Except for a couple years during the Biden admin, real wages have gone up consistently. But people's expectations go up faster thanks to Instagram and other comparison tools.
And of course the usual solution to "affordability" is to subsidize demand or to rob Peter to pay Paul, which just makes the problem worse.
I know that it's still important for Trump to acknowledge the retarded demands of the people. It's just that, in 5 years, no one will remember that gas was $1 higher than normal for a sixth month period. But immigration, if left to continue unabated, will permanently ruin the country.
I’m going to somewhat disagree. There are a lot of affordability issues, especially for young adults. That’s a bit harder to pick up on because when you aggregate everyone in the workforce, you capture the big raises that go to some sectors of the economy and not the stagnation in others. You also capture a COL that can miss that some things have gone up massively while others have not.
If you’re in your twenties, the things that have gone up in cost (for example homes) are things that matter a lot to you, and that take up a bigger chunk of your potential budget. In the case of homes, you also don’t have a home to sell to raise money for that home. If im trading a house for a bigger house, I only need to come up with the money to afford the increase, I already have a house to sell. If you move on to groceries, an increase of ten percent is going to be huge if groceries are 15% of the budget.
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I agree with you. Doesn't change the fact that USA is unfortunately functioning democracy and people are swayed by the strain on their wallets. If Trump manages to hold to some legislative power he may as well be celebrated as visionary 20 years down the line - especially when we see what joy and benefits diversity brings on France's streets now. But doesn't change that winning elections in democracy is not optional.
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Compared to Trump 1 this has been a positively stoic 2 years, with plenty of policy wins racked up.
I simply disagree.
The War is baked in, but as stated, gas prices have actually been on the downward trend, which is the main day-to-day reminder of the war.
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Is that why he promised $5000 to everyone if they won the midterms?
Yes.
Very literally yes.
If he didn't think they were within distance, why even bother? At this point, I suspect they view it as a simple matter of goosing turnout.
Trump said as much recently.
https://polymarket.us/event/usgub-oh-2026-11-03
We'll see if that's an effective strategy considering his approval ratings.
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The Senate in particular seems like it will be hard for Democrats to capture. They need to flip 4 seats.
The easiest to flip are North Carolina, Maine, Texas and Ohio. After that, Iowa, Alaska, Kansas. With the exception of Maine these are all red states! Trump won Texas by 14, Iowa by 13, Ohio by 11!
They also need to avoid being flipped in Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Georgia.
Michigan in particular is a tough race for them with a DSA Muslim vs a turbo normie. Wouldn't be surprised to see Rogers win that one by 8 points.
How much you wanna bet? I'll take even odds that Rogers loses.
Why would I ever bet you with those odds when I can get much better odds on Kalshi? What a strange offer. Counterparty risk means I wouldn't bet you at any odds, no offense.
Kalshi is only offering those odds because nobody will bet at even odds; the purpose of the site is for bettors to make money, not to prove their points. It's like insisting that your team is going to win a football game and then insisting the other party give you points; it doesn't exactly demonstrate confidence in your position. If anything, you should be giving him odds.
This is just not how anything works. I might think my air fryer is worth $300 in terms of the value it provides to me, but it doesn’t mean I’d buy it for $300 when Amazon is selling it for $100.
We’re also allowed to think prediction markets are wrong without betting on them. They are bad for all sorts of reasons. They are going to have to clear a large hurdle for me to even consider it.
Finally I am not predicting a Rogers 8 point victory. I only said I wouldn’t be surprised. Gun to my head he wins by 2.
Again, you're missing the point. Being theoretically willing to buy an air fryer for $300 and finding one for $100 is a great deal if the goal is to buy an air fryer. If the goal, however, to convince my that an air fryer is worth $300, telling me that you paid $100 for one doesn't do much to accomplish it.
I am not a betting man myself, but if I'm going to make specific predictions with confidence and meet resistance, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is. I never actually bet, though. The trick is that when someone insists on betting, offer an amount of money that would cause them real (though not catastrophic) pain if they lost. Talk is cheap, and so is a bet that will only cost you $20 if you lose. People who want to bet are a lot less confident when you insist on $500 or $1000. At that point the tables have turned and they admit that they are only confident enough to involve a "fun" amount of money.
Not exactly a hot take.
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Talk is cheap. I don't believe you.
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Basically what I'm saying. If the big national races are close, semi-coinflip outcomes should ultimately come down for the GOP in the end. You have to believe in a serious blue wave to expect a flip of the Senate, especially a flip that actually gives them 'control' vs. just a nominal majority.
Polymarket believes blue wave, Nate silver believes blue wave, polls predict blue wave, RCP believes blue wave, rumors are that GOP insiders believe blue wave, I am pro Trump also - but I think that his absolute remarkable dumb political luck has finally ran out. A nominal majority is control when it comes to appointments and passing laws.
I’m not sure how seriously I take polymarket, polls and Nate Silver. Not that they’re certainly wrong, but there’s always the issue of motivated reasoning. Elections are something that almost everyone cares about the outcome of, and this is going to come out in what people predict. A lot of people really really want a blue wave, just like a lot of people wanted Trump to lose. This shows up in polling data and predictions because they’re all made by humans.
I believe that Nate Silver wants to be right and does his best.
Now the question is not whether you take said sources seriously, but whether you do it consistently or not. Empirical evidence is that people that are under the impression they are winning are not busy unskewing the polls. When the Iowa gold standard poll came out two years ago, republicans didn't try to prove that it is wrong, they just laughed at it. With good reasons.
I have taken Nate seriously for more than a decade so far (and he has always given Trump higher chances than the rest of his cohort, so there is that), so if I have to make exception now - there has to be good reasons for it. This year may be different - but the only different thing so far is that I really dislike his prognosis.
Now if your gut tells you that Republicans are in better shape than presented, and said gut was also mostly right about the 2016-2024 elections - I will say - great - a track record is a track record.
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I have not heard the 'GOP insiders' rumor, personally.
I also don't see Dems acting like they expect such a win.
The problem with citing PolyMarket, Nate Silver, RCP, and polls is they're all functionally drawing from the exact same data, nobody has 'insider' info here.
IF that dataset it tainted, biased, or otherwise missing something, which has happened before then they can't give you a more accurate picture just by aggregating them together.
And we already have some pretty sizeable polling misses in the primaries!
I think its fair to say the error bars are probably larger than you think. Like, after the Ur-example of a polling miss in Trump's 2016 original win, you should keep your salt grains on hand for reading political polls.
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And importantly, Trump needs 50 non-cucked Republicans to make any appointments. Judges can rule like kings in many cases. We need Trump to be able to appoint them which he can't do without those 50 votes.
I am hopeful for a blue fizzle based on demonstrated poll bias. But maybe I have my head in the sand.
Do you have links towards serious analysis why polls are terribly wrong that is not fueled by binge on copium and hopium?
I think the vibe opinion is that only boomers pick up the phone. Off the top of my head I can’t even think of a way to do an unbiased survey on US politics today.
I think my phone even auto filters pollsters straight to spam and don’t even show me the call.
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North Carolina is a Purple state, It has a democrat governor and a republican state legislature. It doesn't help that the Republican senate candidate is fairly odious, and the democratic senate candidate is a fairly popular former governor. I think it is likely Roy Cooper takes the senate seat.
I agree that North Carolina is a likely flip, made less painful by the fact that Thom Tillis was a closet Democrat.
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