You called it! He’s so blatantly pathetic.

With the rest of results, I’m confident that El-Sayed has it, but also nervous because elections and disappointment are pretty much inseparable to me after the last ten years. I’m suspicious things have been going so well.

FINALLY.

Mississippi was called R, but super close: ~15,200 vote difference with 92% reporting. That would have been insane. I wonder if it’s in recount territory. (Independent Ty Pinkins got 19,000 votes, for what it’s worth.)

https://abcnews.com/Politics/mississippi-2026-live-midterm-election-results/story?id=136767242

Edit: Too close to call, probably going to head to recount territory either way. Colom ahead by 48(!) votes as of 1:12 AM:

He must think it so strange that us NPCs were allowed to change his main character plotline.

I came here to say this. Jefferies is watching these results having already crowned himself speaker in his mind, and will sit on that power like a dragon on gold for two years, doing nothing with it.

He needs a challenger and the sooner they can build momentum before the next Congress is seated, the better.

Vivek hissed and spat while receding into a shapeless void under a nearby rock, never to be seen again.

Wow, didn’t imagine Texas would get rid of Abbott too - incredible.

In case anyone just needs links to results:

https://abcnews.com/elections

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2026

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election

https://apps.npr.org/2026-election-results/

I like ABC’s.

Wow, I’ll take some good news even if a little premature. How nice of Elon Musk’s few hundred million spent in Texas was completely wasted.

Both. Oof.

“We’ve been walking on a tightrope over a gaping hellish ever-deepening chasm my whole life, and it’s just so funny when people think every step is the most important one.”

Oh, god. I have trauma flashbacks to 2016 of the NYT election needle.

Well, at least that would mean that if 40 was “approved” but 42 had a higher margin, organizers could reliably put 40 back on the ballot next time and expect that it would pass. It’s just strange having these on the same ballot, since presumably if 42 passed last time and 40 was on the ballot now, it seems like 40 would automatically overrule 42 even with the same text and vote margins.

Any reason why voters can’t add a proposition in the future to override 42 (assuming the billionaires succeed in tricking enough people and getting it passed)?

I consider 51 seats to be a loss btw. Remember that we have to deal with the traitor Democrat: John Fetterman, which is -1 effective vote for Democrats and +1 effective vote for Republicans. 52 seats are needed to beat 48 Republicans + a traitor vote + JD Vance tiebreaker.

If it’s 51/49, Fetterman is definitely permanently switching parties and giving both the tiebreaker to Vance and control of the Senate to the GOP.

It’s crazy that Oregon is even close. Generally one of the most left-leaning states in my experience, I wish I understood what was going on.

Edit / 2: here’s the line I found from your second link (thanks!):

The biggest issues on voters’ minds, the poll found, are overall affordability (87%) followed by K–12 education (85%) and housing affordability (78%). Although the debate raging over data centers has generated a lot of headlines and heat lately, only 50% of respondents said the issue was “extremely/very” important to them, making it far less of an issue than taxes (77%), homelessness (77%) or crime (73%).

Considering that Trump is almost entirely responsible for the nationwide affordability issues via tariffs and wars, what a self-own if voters take this out on Kotek. Also, housing affordability and education are important, yes, but totally irrational to elect someone who self-identifies as GOP in 2026 and expect them to do anything to help. I hope voters find some sense.

Yeah, that would be something.

I think the forecasts are useful thought experiments, but it seems if you dig deep enough in the methodologies, eventually you always get to a priori premises and assumptions that can’t be supported except by intuition. It would be helpful for there to be a graphic map of those methodologies with “here be dragons” to denote when we’ve stopped using data. In any case, I’m holding onto some hope for this election despite those forecasts, but guarding it like a caveman would a fire.

Very interesting, thanks. Boy, the difference between their polling and forecast is pretty stark. They are giving huge incumbency advantages to existing GOP senate seats, for example. Polling is D53-R47, and forecast is D48-R52, a 5-seat chamber control swing.

I don’t know if that makes them more or less credible. GOP has outperformed in the past, and I’m very wary of vibes-based expectations, but Maine for example has Collins winning despite (1) their own average polling showing Jackson up by 2.7%, and three of four recent polls by 4%; (2) the last Senate seat going democratic; (3) the last presidential election going democratic; (4) the last governorship going democratic.

Makes it it feel like their forecasting formula is putting a pretty big thumb on the scale, but then again, every time I’ve allowed myself optimism in the last 10 years of elections, I’ve been disappointed.

I’ve started using FiftyPlusOne for polling aggregation. It’s a spiritual successor to 538, but if anyone has a better option, glad to be informed:

https://fiftyplusone.news/