I enjoy following the twists and turns of the polls leading up to an election. Let’s say how Arizona looks today, how it looked a month ago, two months ago, three etc. I like following the redistricting process, surprises do occur. The fact Texas didn’t gerrymander was a huge surprise. Illinois, Oregon and Nevada on the Democratic side along with North Carolina on the GOP side wasn’t. Totally expected.

Once a state redraws its districts, the first I want to know is how many competitive districts there are in that state and which party has the incumbent. The rest, I don’t care about, just the competitive districts. The switchable ones. Then as time goes by, some safe or solid districts will become competitive and some competitive districts will become solid. Constant change. What is today won’t be tomorrow.

Ever since the Republicans gained 13 house seats in November 2020, it has been assumed the Republicans would regain control of the house in 2022. This even before a single new district was drawn. That is still the case. But by how many seats, that is unanswerable. At least until redistricting is almost completed sometime next year. The senate is different, only a third of their seats are up. So much depends on which states are holding elections. This midterm the Republicans have 20 seats up, the Democrats 14. Numbers which favor the Democrats. The less seats up, the less you can lose. With the smaller number of seats up next year, the Democrats stand a good chance of retaining the senate. As of today, anyway.

I still don’t see any red wave in the house. 157 districts have been redrawn, out of that, 12 are in the competitive column. 9 Democratic held, 3 Republican held. That a bit over a third of the districts. A Republican net gain of 10-15 still looks the most likely outcome, today. No red wave. A wave election is usually defined as the out of power party gaining 30 seats or more along with retaking control of the house. This has happened in 1994,2006, 2010 and 2018. Before that one must go back to the 1950 midterm election for the wave election prior to 1994. In fact, both 1948 and 1950 were wave elections. In 1948 the GOP gained 56 house seats along with taking control. In 1950 the Democrats reversed that with a gain of 75 seats.

I love all the twists and turns leading up to an election.

It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.