Wednesday, October 19, 2022

U.S. House Predictions: Alabama-Alaska

20 Days Until Election Day

The time has come, as it does every two years, for me to predict all 435 U.S. House races. These will start rolling out slowly over the next couple of days, but will cover more states each day as time allows, fairly soon.

I have historically had a very good record in making these predictions, but an election after a round of national redistricting is much harder to handicap, so I am expecting to be wrong on more than usual this year. Since almost every district has changed, I have to rely on an online source to get the 2020 Presidential vote from the district, which of course helps me determine what I think the outcome will be. The only real comprehensive source I can find for those numbers are from "The Daily Kos" of all places. I trust the statistics are accurate. Since there are many districts that might be new or do not have a true previous incumbent, I am going to take the steps and list the major candidates in each district.

Let's get started, and I will do a housekeeping matter in a moment on Alaska, since when I make a "wrong" prediction on any race, I always explain it. I will have one more to do later on for New York, but this is where I will do the mea culpa on Alaska and explain why Sarah Palin is responsible.

Alabama
 
1. Jerry Carl R (Trump 64%) - Safe R
2. Phyllis Harvey-Hall D vs. Barry Moore R (Trump 64%)- Safe R
3. Lin Veasey D vs. Mike Rogers R (Trump 67%)- Safe R
4. Rick Neighbors D vs. Robert Aderholt R  (Trump 80%)- Safe R
5. Kathy Warner-Stanton D vs. Dale Strong R (Trump 63%)- Safe R
6. Gary Palmer R (Trump 64%)- Safe R
7. Terri Sewell D vs. Beatrice Nichols R (Biden 66%)- Safe D

AL current: 1 D,  6 R
AL predicted: 1 D, 6 R

Current total: 1 D, 6 R
 
Predicted: 
 
1 D (1 Safe)
6 R (6 Safe)
____________________________________________________________________
 
Alaska
 
On June 6, I predicted the Special Election for this seat would be Leans R (Tossup Begich) It was a weird election under a weird system with Ranked Choice Voting and I did not bother to alter my prediction, even when I should have.

I thought the final two on the ranked choice would be the Democrat and the Republican Nick Begich III. If that had been the case, Begich would have won with a few points to spare. That is not really in dispute. However, the Republican vote was split and Sarah Palin edged out Begich to be part of the final two along with Democrat Mary Peltola. While Begich said he would rank Palin as his number two option, Palin told her supporters to not participate in the rank choice option. Palin proved to be so weak of a candidate that enough supporters of the other Republican candidates voted for the Democrat instead and they won a seat they had not had in over 50 years. Without any analysis of the November race, let us just say they all have to face each other again, ranked choice voting and all

1. Mary Peltola D vs. Chris Bye (Libertarian) vs. Nick Begich III R vs. Sarah Palin R (Trump 53%)-
Tossup (D) 

AK current: 1 D, 0 R
AK predicted: 1 D, 0 R

Current total: 2 D, 6 R

Predicted:

2 D (1 Safe, 1 Tossup)
6 R (6 Safe)