Sorry we've been out of touch for a couple of months (family issues), but here are some realistic predictions for what will happen Tuesday.

Tl;dr version for those with insufficient attention spans or an aversion to being realistic: the delusionals have worked themselves up into such a frenzy that even GOOD news -- Republicans going +15 or +20 and winning the House and maybe picking up a seat or two and perhaps taking control of the Senate -- will be viewed as major disappointments by those who actually believe outlier polls, people who reflexively add 10 points to GOP candidates in polls just because, and people who take ludicrous "predictions" by sources such as Newt Gingrich and Dickie Morris seriously.

Senate:

The most likely reasonable expectation is in the range of GOP -1 to GOP +1. This may sound unimpressive or pessimistic, but then reality IS normally more unimpressive than fantasy. It's not totally pessimistic either: we'll assume that Republicans hold their pair of highly endangered and marginal seats in North Carolina and Wisconsin, outcomes which are very far from certainties.

The most likely path to the -1 to +1 range is: Oz loses PA (which he will, after appearing to be winning substantially on Tuesday night) and the Republicans pick up either 0, 1 or 2 of Nevada and New Hampshire. An upset is possible but Walker will most likely lose in a runoff in Georgia, other races may be close-but-no-cigar (such as Arizona), and only if a 1994-style massacre of Democrats occurs is there any plausible chance for pickups in places like Colorado and Washington. Of the 2 Democrat-held seats which are actually tossups, Nevada is a better bet for GOP success than New Hampshire (even the right-leaning shills at Real Clear Politics have conceded that Bolduc will not win), and Nevada is pretty tenuous.

Final Senate note: if partisan control hangs in the balance, i.e. if Republicans end up with a 51-49 majority, the filthy whore from Alaska (who will win re-election easily), will sell herself to the highest bidder like all filthy whores do; that high bidder will be the Democrats. A la Judas Jim Jeffords 20 years ago, Murkowski will switch sides and give the Democrats control. If we want REAL control we need to get to 52 somehow.

Governors:

Maryland and Massachusetts are already foregone conclusions to flip from R to D and another significant possibility to do the same thing is Oklahoma. In the end, we'll guess that Stitt wins by an extremely small margin and holds Oklahoma for the GOP.

Among currently D-held seats, Pennsylvania is a lost cause but we predict the Republicans will pick up Nevada; however it better not be too close because Republicans almost never win close elections in Nevada.

Sadly, MAGA heroine Kari Lake will lose in Arizona simply because she cannot be allowed to win; she's too good. If she somehow slips through the cracks in Katie Hobbs' Fraud Machine (it's so cute that people think the Rats can't cheat because "Weer Wotching" more closely than in 2020) and ekes out a win, Lake will not be allowed to govern. Remember Evan Mechem? Lake will be Evan Mechem 2.0. The Democrats, the Democrat media and the RINO elites in Lake's own party will see to it and are probably already preparing for it by fabricating the Kari Lake version of the "Steele Dossier".

All other seats will probably be status quo though there is a decent opportunity for Tim Michels to defeat soyboi Tony Evers in Wisconsin. Republicans will blow it in Kansas, which should have been an easy pickup, and the Oregon pipe dream will turn out to be a pipe bomb as support for the "independent" Democrat who was splitting the D vote has evaporated, and her supporters have flocked back like sheep to the nutzoid D candidate. It was fun while it lasted and the final outcome will be close, but this is Oregon. Other states -- notably New York -- will be much closer than they usually are, but all realistic odds favor Democrat holds in that state and in Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico and Colorado. Will Illinois flip, as some seem to believe? That's precious.

House:

The realistic floor for the GOP is somewhere around +10, and that's sufficient to take control but as mentioned above would be considered a crushing disappointment if that's all we get. If we see less than +10, or worse yet we see panicky Democrat predictions of gains coming true, then we know that Democrat fraud is working better than ever.

A sensible outcome without going too far overboard with the purely wishful thinking is GOP +15 to maybe as much as +20 (I know, I know, that's STILL a massive downer); anyone who truly believes, despite no evidence whatsoever, that +50, +75, +100 is viable, will need to up their meds starting Wednesday.

Newly created seats in Florida, Texas (1 of the 2 new seats), Montana and Colorado will go our way, offset by GOP reapportionment losses in places like New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan and West Virginia along with D pickups of new seats in states such as Oregon and North Carolina. Florida will be the biggest win for our side, as the delegation goes from 16-11 in our favor to 20-8. Arizona might see a pickup of 2 House seats for the GOP even as both statewide Republican candidates are being frauded out of their wins.

Democrat incumbents (through defeat on Tuesday, or retirement, or redistricting) will be ousted in Wisconsin, Tennessee, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio (Tim Ryan's old district), perhaps Iowa. There are possibilities of capturing marginal tossup Democrat-held districts in Alaska, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Nevada. There are lesser chances, but still possible pickups, in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, and a few others. Ideas of GOP seizures of numerous endangered Democrat seats in places like Illinois and New York are nothing but illusions and not even a single pickup will result (well, maybe 1 at most) absent a "red wave" of enormous proportions.

There are only 2 GOP-held seats which are in any real danger of being lost -- unless Democrat "ballot harvesting" fraud in California claims a whole bunch more, as it did in 2018 and very well might again in 2022 -- and those 2 are Mayra Flores in TX-34 and John Gibbs in MI-3. Both are in tough fights, and Gibbs in particular will go down to defeat as the GOP establishment abandoned him the moment he defeated Trump-hating weasel Peter Meijer in the primary. As always, the GOPe would greatly prefer a liberal Democrat to a MAGA conservative.

If we have to pick a specific final number in the House, we'll go with lucky +13. We'd be delighted to be wrong about some of this (particularly Kari Lake) but we prefer predictions based in reality rather than fantasy.

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U.S. House Senate 2022 Take back the House But not the Senate

Photo credit: Tony Adamis/Special to the Times Union

Anyone assuming that Republicans are going to win most of the close ones in November is delusional. We have to turn out in numbers that make these races far less close.

Four years ago, in the highest-turnout midterm election in U.S. history, the GOP was annihilated and some presumed it was because Republicans weren't motivated (wrong) while the Rats were highly motivated by their hatred of Trump (bingo). R turnout was actually up substantially that year over where it had been in 2014; but D turnout was absolutely off the charts.

The days of Republicans being able to run the table in comparatively low-turnout midterms such as 1994, 2010 and 2014 are over. 2018 is the new midterm turnout model, and 2022's turnout in November (at least on the left) is going to be "2018 on steroids".

The GOP establishment, the ones who control the ad buys and the purse strings and who normally support only liberals and moderates while giving the shaft to conservatives, better get on the ball and run good, effective, hard-hitting ads anywhere the Democrat-controlled media will permit them to run -- and run them for ALL candidates, not just their RINO pets -- and try to get Republican enthusiasm to be as great as Democrat enthusiasm. It wasn't in 2018, it wasn't in 2020, and we're heading for a repeat in 2022.

If they don't get on the ball (and surely we can count on Ronna Romney, Mitch McConnell and the RNC/NRSC to do the right thing, LOL) then there are going to be a lot of so-called experts with dazed expressions on their faces on November 9th, looking around helplessly and wondering where "muh red wave" disappeared to.

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U.S. House New York Special election 2022 Bad candidate Narrow loss

Luna's victory in CD-13 is great, especially because the GOP simps hate her, and the school board election results in Florida (the good guys won some big ones!) are getting a lot of hype today, which is another noteworthy outcome. But as for the Republican congressional primaries in Florida, how are real conservatives supposed to be enthused by a bunch of squishes being nominated everywhere aside from CD-13?

Laura Loomer made it close but lost to ultra-squish Daniel Webster in CD-11, and Anthony Sabatini lost in CD-7 so the GOPe liberals are breathing huge sighs of relief about dodging those two conservative bullets. Lavern Spicer lost in CD-24, a district which no Republican could possibly win in November anyway so that's not a real big deal.

OTOH "moderate" incumbents across the board won in landslides mainly because, aside from Webster, they were facing no serious challengers: Carlos Gimenez, Maria Salazar, Mario Diaz-Balart, Michael Waltz, Vern Buchanan, some would add Gus Bilirakis to the RINO list.... none of them even had to break a sweat. They all had challengers, but none with sufficient funding or name recogntion to have any impact at all.

Conservatives are told that primary elections are the place to make themselves heard, because afterwards party unity is of paramount importance -- except when a conservative wins a primary, of course -- and we must hold our noses and vote for any liberal who happens to have a (R) after his name. More and more people are starting to realize that the fix is in as they notice how the establishment ensures that its candidates have massive financial advantages in the primaries, and how those same string-pullers often place phony conservatives on the ballot to split the vote of the party "base".

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U.S. House Florida 2022 Anna Paulina Luna Squishes win elsewhere

By what is surely just a remarkable coincidence, the polls which the liberal poindexters at FiveThirtyEight.com allow the public to see -- at least the ones from sources those poindexters consider to be "highly rated" -- all favor the ultra-liberal candidate. So just because us unenlightened proles have never heard of the leftist poll-takers at the University of North Florida doesn't mean they're wrong.

Still, Florida is not a slam-dunk Republican state by any means whatsoever, and even Governor DeSantis is going to have to work hard (he is a major target and is in no way going to simply cruise to re-election) but given the low quality of their Democrat opponents both Rubio & DeSantis should be moderately favored. At most.

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Senate Florida 2022 Not safe GOP?

Photo credit: KW Miller for Congress

According to Ballotpedia, Trump has endorsed the RINO incumbent instead of the conservative challenger. This poll, not that it's particularly believable, might cause that endorsement to change. Not only is Gimenez a RINO who supports amnesty for illegal aliens, gun-grabbing and other liberal causes, he supported the J6 Kangaroo Kourt Kommittee even after Trump endorsed him in 2020.

Some people insist that Trump's endorsements of guaranteed-to-win-anyway Republican House incumbents have nothing to do with padding his winning percentage, but instead is a "6D Chess" maneuver to inspire loyalty from politicians who will always remember how Trump supported them (even when they didn't need it), and they will therefore support him in return.

Oh really? Here is a list of the other 15 House Republicans who Trump endorsed in 2020 and who then backstabbed him by voting for the Pelosi-Cheney-Kinzinger J6 lynch mob: Johnson (SD), Bice (OK), Moore (UT), Guest (MS), Bentz (OR), Simpson (ID), Fortenberry (NE), Newhouse (WA), Bacon (NE), Miller-Meeks (IA), Jacobs (NY), Gonzales (TX), Joyce (OH), Salazar (FL), Curtis (UT).

How's that for "loyalty", eh?

Fortenberry was ousted for some alleged technical violation that Democrats probably get away with every day, Jacobs supposedly ran away because some nutzoid leftist killed some people in Buffalo (near his district), and all of the others so far have safely won their primaries in 2022 despite their apostasy. There were 19 other Republicans who voted to persecute Trump, but at least he was smart enough not to have endorsed them previously.

8/24/2022 update: Miller lost by over 60 points. Believe lunatic polls at your own risk.

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U.S. House Florida 2022 Backstabbing RINOs Lunatic poll

Photo credit: pbs.com

From the article: "Wyoming law states that voters must be affiliated with a particular party to vote in that party's primary election - but voters can change their party registration on primary Election Day or any time leading up to it. In other words, it is essentially an open primary."

Wyoming is not unique in this area, though other states with ostensibly "closed" primaries may have different deadlines for party-switching. The folks who concern themselves with "Open or closed primary??!11??" or "ALL PRIMARIES SHOULD BE CLOAZED!!" may as well finally begin to understand that the bolded part above applies to every state now. There is effectively no such thing as a closed primary anymore, anywhere.

In this particular case, the lack of a truly closed primary isn't going to save Cheney's RINO ass no matter how much she goes around desperately begging for the votes of liberals of both parties. In other states however, Democrat infiltration of Republican primaries has had significant effects even if those effects did not always alter the outcome.

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U.S. House Wyoming 2022 Liz Cheney Dead RINO J6 Kangaroo Kourt Klown

Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

The states are Colorado and, even more ludicrously, Washington. The plan is to launch some tepid ads in which the Democrat incumbents are revealed to have voted "with Joe Biden" on nearly 100% of all issues. Surely that will convince liberal voters in those two states to come to their senses and vote for Republicans! If you were expecting some ads which would be a little more hard-hitting than that, then you are not familiar with how the GOP does things. Anything effective would be "controversial" and the NRSC, like the RNC, always runs screaming from "controversy".

In a tidal wave election Republicans might have a slender chance of an upset in Colorado, but Washington is a lost cause and has been for years. If the election was simply a beauty contest, Tiffany Smiley would win against Patsy Murray by about 99%; but as it is she will probably lose by 10-15 points. Now watch the NRSC -- even as they are being heavily outspent all across the board by the Democrats -- brainlessly waste money on hail-Mary pipe dreams in Colorado and Washington and at the same time failing to spend sufficient money to try to hold very shaky but quite winnable Senate seats in North Carolina, Wisconsin.... and even Ohio.

The Democrats smell blood -- and an unexpected golden pickup opportunity -- so they are funneling an enormous amount of bucks into the Ohio Senate race, while the supposedly favored (but not actually favored) GOP candidate is woefully underfunded and basically off the air at this time.

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Senate 2022 GOP wasting money Washington Colorado

The article claims that "Democrats have been financially backing MAGA GOP candidates this primary cycle in order to have a better shot at beating them ahead of an expected Republican wave in November." In this case, that assertion smells like bullshit. As of July 13 Gibbs had less than $150,000 cash on hand and Meijer had about 6x as much. Those must be some pretty stingy Democrat contributors.

Two facts:

1. If (more likely when) Gibbs defeats Meijer on Tuesday, he really better count on Democrats for further funding because the petulant spiteful RNC sure ain't gonna come across. They would much rather lose this seat than support a conservative who just slaughtered one of their pet RINOs.

2. This district was moved a few notches to the left in redistricting so now any Republican starts off as the underdog in a general election. Especially when the ultra-liberal Democrat in the race has all the money in the world to campaign with and doesn't even have to spend a dime of it in the primary because she's unopposed.

The district is not so far left that a Republican can't possibly win, and money alone doesn't always determine the outcome of a race, but when the imbalance is as massive as this one will be it's going to take a substantial blue wave to pull off the upset here.

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U.S. House Michigan 2022 Silver-spoon RINO Peter Meijer Going down

Photo credit: AP Photo/John Raoux

Liberal media outlets like Fox News aren't about to bypass a chance to stir up trouble for Republicans, but this endorsement -- Trump's, not Cruz's -- is a valid concern. Is Kleefisch really an inferior candidate to Michels, who is currently shown as doing worse in the general election vs. Evers than Kleefisch is? The ex-Lt. Governor under Scott Walker isn't some squishy "moderate"; she is every bit as conservative -- or more -- as the other candidates who are running and, as the linked article notes, has actually been elected to something before.

So let's see: Kleefisch is not only conservative and "electable" (and well-enough funded, AND opposed by liberal establishment Republicans like the "Club For Growth") but actually more likely to win an important race than the novice whose only political experience up to now has been losing races for state Senate and U.S. Senate. But of course Trump is never wrong with his endorsements (Dr. Oz says "hi") and in this case Trump is needlessly snubbing a good MAGA conservative who has thoroughly supported him for years.

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Wisconsin Governor 2022 Rebecca Kleefisch Ted Cruz Got it right Donald Trump Didn't

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The leftists at 538 are only just now realizing that Democrats are favored to keep the Senate? Oz is toast in PA and always was, so that's minus-1 for the GOP and the loss is not likely to be offset with a Walker victory in Georgia which was supposed to be (and may still be) the most likely Republican pickup. But "most likely" still doesn't mean "likely" whatsoever. Assuming all other incumbents win too and open seats are held, that means a 51-49 Senate with the GOP on the short end.

If any other seats flip, the reality is that it's much more likely to be R to D than D to R. Wisconsin, North Carolina and maybe even Ohio are not slam dunk retentions for Republicans. Things are not 100% safe even in Utah (!) or Missouri depending on who wins that state's primary next week, however sanity is still favored though not guaranteed to prevail in both of those states in the end.

Aside from Georgia, Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada are the only plausible flips in the good direction; anyone thinking of adding New Hampshire, Colorado, etc. to the list can dream on. But don't forget Alaska, where Tshibaka (R) beating Murkowski (RINO) -- if that actually happens -- should count as a Republican pickup even though it technically isn't.

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Senate 2022 Democrats retain control Pennsylvania Georgia

Even better, true conservatives are supporting Gibbs too. The liberals and RINOs are both hoping that Gibbs will lose in November against the ultra-liberal and very well-funded Rat. The redistricting process also worked against Republicans here, as this district which encompasses the rapidly-deteriorating Grand Rapids area was shifted several points to the left and now favors Democrats.

Even so, at least one poll shows that Gibbs would fare much better than the spoiled little rich boy who voted for impeachment. However this will take money, and Gibbs doesn't have a family fortune to fall back on, nor can he count on funding from big-$$$$ RINO GOP donors after he wins the primary next week.

Gibbs is going to be outspent heavily while his opponent gets 24/7 free support from the media. Despite all that, he can and will win if RINO voters in his district are able to suppress their disgust at one of their own kind losing his primary. We're told by the GOP establishment (when it suits them) that party unity in general elections is of paramount importance. Let's see how well they prove it in this case.

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U.S. House Michigan 2022 RINO backstabber Loser

Photo credit: Getty Images

With Democrats sabotaging Republican primaries all over the map in 2022, it's refreshing to see someone in the GOP finally taking the initiative to turn the tables. Unfortunately it's going to be a complete dud here in New York. The filing deadline was nearly two months ago, so there is no way to get a Republican onto the ballot as a fake Democrat and we're stuck picking from the Dems who have already filed. And how many of them qualify as "moderate"? Probably zero.

Of New York's 26 U.S. House districts, only 13 of them are currently held by Democrats and have multiple Democrats running. In the other 13, either Democrats are unopposed in the primary or the districts are already held by Republicans (so who cares which Rat wins the primary?). At the state Senate level, there are only two districts in the entire state in which multiple Democrats filed to run. Nice try, though.

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New York 2022 GOP "tricks" Too late