Experiment time: I fill a glass to the midway point with a clear liquid and put it on the table. What do you see?
An optimist sees it as half full. A pessimist sees it as half empty.
A contrarian sidesteps the premise and says something goofy and unexpected, such as “Ackshhhully, the glass is too big.” That’s their biggest weakness: Contrarians fixate on wildcard variables, which kneecaps their “real world” utility. (But on the other hand, they’re fantastic on podcasts.)
A delusional optimist assumes the clear liquid in the glass is top-shelf Russian vodka, and warms up his liver. Za zdorovye! A delusional pessimist figures it’s probably poison, calls the cops, and grabs his gun.
We’re reached the apex of election season 2026, and the optimists, pessimists, contrarians, and delusional optimists/pessimists are making so much flippin’ noise, nobody knows what’s real anymore. They all have massive media megaphones — and Lord Almighty, they’re using ‘em!
Because they all have an ecosystem to feed.
So we’re seeing scores of articles about how the polls are all wrong, and Republicans will defy the naysayers yet again. Plus plenty of articles about the imminent Blue Wave, President Donald Trump’s record-low approval ratings, and the all-but-certain death of the MAGA movement.
But both stories can’t be true.
Since people tend to consume media that reinforces their beliefs, it creates an echo chamber. But echo chambers aren’t just a consumer-driven problem: Journalists, whose compensation model relies on clicks, are incentivized to report the rosiest plausible scenario — because that’s what their consumers yearn to read.
(Plus, of course, the occasional doomer piece. Every so often, a good, timely horror movie becomes a box office hit. But your bread and butter is comfort food.)
Which leads to a distorted worldview: It’s how echo chambers lose sight of reality.
Because what we really need is realism.
Hey, I love fan fiction as much as the next guy, but we’re down to brass tacks. Da-da-da, da-da-da: It’s the Final Countdown.
The midterm election is in just three days!
And the universe of persuadable undecideds is rapidly dwindling. At this point, there ain’t a ton of ‘em left.
Which is why the emphasis is now on turnout — and getting enough likeminded, sympathetic voters off their [BLEEP] and out to vote.
That’s a critical, ride-or-die variable, but notoriously difficult to assess beforehand. Some Get Out the Vote (GOTV) plans look great on paper (and cost a fortune), but collapse on Election Day. Others fly completely under the radar, yet hit a bullseye.
I’ll just say this: The GOP has been sitting on a sky-high mountain of money for months now, so there’s simply no excuse for not having a winning GOTV plan.
If we botch this, heads should roll.
As for the Democrats’ GOTV plan, who knows? There’s overlap between voter intensity and turnout (which seems to favor the Dems), but it’s also true that DSA candidates have badly underperformed in elections. That seems to indicate holes in their GOTV game.
Probable advantage: Republicans.
(Or, instead of a bad GOTV plan, it could just be bad polls: Maybe the DSA’s popularity is, was, and continues to be wildly overreported. Can’t rule it out, since DSA success has mostly been limited to bright-blue districts and college towns. But we’ll return to polling problems in a sec.)
If you want to terrify your Republican guests at tonight’s Halloween party, the two most under-discussed, under-publicized reasons for GOP pessimism are Fox News’ ratings plummeting, and the near-total absence of mainstream media stories about Democratic operatives throwing each other — and/or the voters — under the bus.
Fox News still dominates the news ratings, but it suffered its largest year-to-year ratings drop in the month before an election in a decade: FNC’s primetime ratings fell by 28%.
Meanwhile, CNN and MS NOW both had double-digit gains.
That’s partly a commentary on FNC’s current lineup of primetime hosts. It’s partly because of cord-cutting. And it at least partially reflects the Democrats’ edge in enthusiasm.
Probable advantage: Democrats.
The lack of Democratic operatives throwing each other under the bus is awfully revealing, too. Back in 2024, mainstream media outlets were writing about “misogyny” costing Kamala Harris the election, and how the media set her up to fail more than a week before Halloween (!) — because the writing was on the wall.
So the Dems got ahead of the story by blaming the American people for being bigoted. They blamed the media, too. And then the campaign staff blamed each other for being unprepared and wasting money.
This article from the Guardian — “Harris Campaign’s Record $1B Funds Fail to Translate Into Swing State Advantage” — from Oct. 10, 2024 (!) is a good example:
[T]here are fears that Harris’s fundraising success may lead to cash drying up when it matters most, by dampening the enthusiasm of donors to give the extra funds that strategists believe might be necessary to get her over the line in a tightening race.
“There have never been so many electoral college votes in play so late in the cycle, which means that our strong fundraising and volunteer enthusiasm are not guaranteed to be enough to fully reach voters everywhere they are,” the Washington Post quoted an unnamed Harris campaign staff member as saying.
Obama’s appearance on the campaign trail follows evidence that Harris is failing to connect with key components of the Democrats’ constituency, including Black men.
Politico reported that Democratic operatives were worried about apathy among Black men in Detroit, Michigan’s biggest city, even as Harris’s campaign has dispatched several high-profile African American surrogates to the state, including the basketball legend Magic Johnson and the party elder James Clyburn.
“I am worried about turnout in Detroit,” Jamal Simmons, a former communications director for Harris, told the site. “Do they have the machine to turn people out?”
“We continue to have this widening apathy in cities like Detroit … [Harris] hasn’t done anything to change that,” added Scott Holiday, executive director of Detroit Action, a voter mobilisation group. [emphasis added]
That’s five negative leaks in six paragraphs! The good ship Harris was leaking like a sieve!
Yet we’re not seeing these stories in the run-up to the 2026 midterms. (Except in Michigan, where Democratic dysfunction is a legitimate problem.) Instead, CNN is writing puff pieces about the Democrats’ ambitious plans after winning the midterms — and the telltale signs the Dems will win in a landslide. Far-left publications such as the Daily Beast are throwing about the “landslide” word, too.
This doesn’t mean a Republican defeat is inevitable. But it reveals the Democrats’ staggering level of confidence — which is lightyears ahead of where it was in 2024.
And a big reason for their confidence is the polls. Over and over again, the polls have projected a Democratic tsunami so ginormous, it will even swallow ruby-red strongholds such as Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, South Carolina, Texas, and Iowa.
Which we see it in the predictive markets: According to Kalshi, there’s now a 94% chance the Dems will win the House; a 72% chance the Dems win the Senate.
Probable advantage: Democrats.
It’s “probable” because the polls have been wrong more than right. According to CNN’s Harry Enten, during the Trump era, polls in swing states have exaggerated Democratic support by an average of 4.1 points.
If the polls are off by 4.1 points in 2026, the Republicans will keep the Senate, pick up a few blue seats, and the House will be close.
Of course, there’s a chance the polls have recalibrated, self-corrected, and won’t make the same mistake again. The pollsters, after all, claim they’ve reweighted their polls to ensure greater accuracy.
If so, the GOP is in deep, deep doo-doo.
But there’s also a chance that the underlying mechanisms that produce these polling errors still haven’t been addressed — and if anything, they’ve probably accelerated. Hey, when pollsters must call 140 people to get a single response, they’re not getting a realistic snapshot of public sentiment.
Because they’re talking near-exclusively with lonely weirdos with nothing better to do than yak with pollsters. And even without the weirdo-factor, Democrats respond to polls at a much higher rate than Republicans anyway.
Polls tell us what people who take polls think. Anything beyond that is a mystery. Furthermore, if only one out of 140 people is willing to answer a poll, it’s unclear if the “science” of polling is even salvageable.
Probable advantage: Republicans.
Finally, there’s the historic headwinds. The party in power almost always takes it on the chin in midterm elections. Since 1934, the president’s party has lost an average of 27 House seats and 3.4 Senate seats.
History isn’t destiny, and just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean it’ll happen in the future. As the Gipper said, “We were meant to be masters of destiny, not victims of fate.”
Until last week, the history books said the Milwaukee Brewers couldn’t win the World Series, either.
But historical trends usually exist for a reason. Unfortunately for Republicans, the midterm trend makes sense, because it matches the movement of the political pendulum.
Advantage: Democrats.
Bottom line?
The 2026 midterm races will be like a gigantic slot machine — with different combinations spinning nonstop. A handful of combinations let the Republicans thread the needle and pull off the upset.
Because a ton of critical races are still in the margin of error: If Republicans close strong and dominate the GOTV game, we could ABSOLTELY win ‘em all.
Most of the combinations give the Democrats control of the House. It’s more probable than improbable.
A smaller number of combinations also give the Dems control of the Senate. It’s certainly within striking distance.
And a minority of combinations show the Dems running the table, winning every close race from Texas through Michigan, and delivering a real, undeniable Blue Wave. That’s not the most probable outcome, but it’s a very real possibility.
So I’ll make two predictions. The first is, Republicans lose the House — not in a landslide, but the Dems will have a good night. Control of the Senate will be a nailbiter, with a sprinkling of GOP upsets and razor-thin finishes. Some high-profile Democrats will go down in flames. Donkey hearts will be broken.
But it’ll be an uphill battle for the GOP to hold onto the Senate. Could finish 49-51.
And then, all eyes will be on John Fetterman: Will he jump ship and join the GOP — or stay a Democrat?
It’ll probably depend which on Dems lose and which ones win. If Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan, for example, the probability of Fetterman jumping increases. If El-Sayed is defeated and Chuck Schumer promises him a plum committee role, he’ll likely stay.
My second prediction: It doesn’t really matter what I write, what pollsters predict, or what the experts say.
Get. Out. And. Vote!
Because it’s not about being an optimist, a pessimist, or anything in between. Not anymore. We’re beyond all that.
It’s about what we’re willing to do about it.
And I’ll close with poetry from Dickinson (Bruce, not Emily) about the folly of “expert” predictions:
Thirteen, The Beast, is rising
The Frenchman [Nostradamaus] did surmise
Through earthquakes and starvation
The warlord will ariseTerror, death, destruction
Pour from the Eastern sands
But the truth of all predictions
Is always in your handsIron Maiden, “Die With Your Boots On”
Folks, if you don’t like a prediction, go do something about it!
Now. Today. While there’s still time.
Because there’s not much time left.
One Last Thing: 2026 will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the future of our country teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Blue wave or red wall, the 2026 midterms will be a gamechanger.
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