Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's Election Dissection,
your election analysis for across the circus.
I hope you all are doing well today, wherever you are.
Well, this is it.
We are now truly in the home stretch.
Election Day is about a week away.
And if you've been following us throughout this year, thank you so much.
It really means a lot.
And I'm really glad that we could be helpful in anybody learning about elections in their
area and just anybody who's curious about what's going on around this great country
of ours.
So, before we start, there are a couple of changes.
I promised if any Cook PVI things changed, I would discuss them.
For example, a couple of the Senate races have changed.
The Pennsylvania race, which was lean Democratic between Bob Casey and challenger Dave McCormick,
is now considered toss-up.
And also the seat in Nebraska, where Deb Fischer is facing off against challenger independent
candidate Dan Osborne moved from likely to lean.
So Fischer still has an edge, but a smaller one from when the election season started.
We also have a new toss-up House race for the Republicans, Pennsylvania's 10th district,
where incumbent Representative Scott Perry is facing former news anchor Democrat Janelle
Stelson.
So those are the only major changes as of this taping.
And it just goes to show you how we're nearly a week before the election and ratings still
change based on the political climate.
It's just a fascinating thing, isn't it?
So for this edition before the election, I did want to take a moment to discuss the
forecast at FiveThirtyEight.com, which is a website we use all the time for polling.
Now I've been following FiveThirtyEight and their election forecasts for many years, ever
since 2016.
So compared to the Cook PVI, we'll take a look at that.
So according to their sources, the battle for the Senate is pretty much taken by the
Republicans.
According to their model, Republicans have an 88% chance of winning the Senate compared
to Democrats who only have a 12% chance.
So it looks very good for them.
Of course, they do say don't take that into credit because you really never know what's
going to happen until election day.
Like we always say here on the show, the only poll that matters is the one on election day.
And I remember years ago, they made a good analogy because in 2018, they predicted that
the Democrats would win the House with an 85% margin.
And they said in that article that suppose you went on a plane and they said this plane
has a 15% chance of crashing, you'd probably think a little bit before you hop on the plane.
It's still a bit nerve wracking.
And in a way that kind of is the same analogy here.
Of course, we all know the Democrats did win the House in 2018.
But you know, even with the sudden surge of Dan Osborne in Nebraska, as we've mentioned
a couple of times on the show before, really anything can happen between now and the election.
Well moving on to the much more closer things, according to their model, in the House, Republicans
have a 52% chance of winning compared to Democrats' 48% chance.
That's much more slimmer.
And according to them, it still says, as we mentioned a couple weeks back on the Republican
representative toss up look, that the 45th district race between incumbent Republican
Michelle Steele and challenger Democrat Derek Tran is set to be the closest race for the
House of Representatives, with the forecasted margin of victory being even.
And it's crazy because some of the close races have the Democrats favored by.2,.8, Republicans
favored by.9, 1.1.
No, this is even.
Literally 50-50.
And a lot of the races we mentioned are set to be in that real toss up area.
Although compared to the Cook PVI, 538 only has seven toss up races compared to the, I
want to say, near 25 that the Cook PVI has.
So they really look at not just the polling, but also predicted polling, expert ratings,
and things like that.
They take a lot into account.
It's very impressive.
And then we'll talk about the big one.
The race to decide who will be the 47th president of the United States.
I know I didn't talk a lot about the presidential race this year.
And I did mention that way back in March or February, back when it was Joe Biden versus
Donald Trump for the election.
Because you can tune into any podcast, not really a political podcast, but any podcast
these days, and learn a thing or two about the presidential race.
And it could be swayed or not swayed.
And I just wanted to focus on some of the races down ballot in this great country of
ours.
So yeah, that's kind of why I didn't focus.
But we still got a week to go.
So let's take a look at it here.
According to 538's model, it's just as close as the House of Representatives race.
According to their model, Donald Trump has a 53% chance of winning compared to Kamala
Harris with a 47% chance.
And to them, the states to look at are Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin, and Nevada, which as of this point, has the closest margin of victory with Trump
with plus 0.2 points.
Wisconsin's not far behind with 0.3 in favor of Harris.
Then there's Pennsylvania, which is favored Trump, 0.4.
And then there's Michigan, which is favored Harris, 0.5.
So those numbers are very likely going to change over the next week or so.
We'll just have to wait and see.
So I would highly suggest going online to 538.com and looking at these four casts yourself
if you are interested, because it is fascinating stuff, really.
So with that, there's not much left for me to say except what I always say at the end
of every show.
And at this time, this sentence is much more important than it has been over the last few
months.
And it's the last time I'm going to say this sentence before the election.
And I've always been meaningful because I've never been one to tell people who to vote
for.
Like I don't go up to someone and say, hey, vote for this, vote for that, vote for this.
I used to be like that, but then I realized stuff like that only creates division.
I mean, you could say I'm voting for so and so, but you don't have to.
That's the way I see it.
So I will say it.
And this time, I truly mean it because it's only a week away.
You don't have much of an excuse.
You can vote early, drop your ballot off in a drop box if your state has them, go to the
polls in person on Tuesday, maybe even before, depending on which state you are.
Be sure to check your state's election laws.
And as I always say, I don't care who you vote for, but I do care that you vote.
So please do, please perform your civic duty and cast your ballot.
It's very important.
No matter where you live, I ask you, please, please do so.
Thank you all for listening to Driscoll's election dissection.
If you would like to learn more about the show, go online to Algedproductions.com and
be sure to listen on any podcasting form you like.
Thank you all for listening and I will see you all very soon.
Don't forget to vote.
This episode was brought to you by Algid Productions LLC. Thank you for listening!