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Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's Election Dissection,

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your election analysis for across the circus.

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I hope you all are doing well today, wherever you are.

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Well, this is it.

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We are now truly in the home stretch.

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Election Day is about a week away.

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And if you've been following us throughout this year, thank you so much.

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It really means a lot.

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And I'm really glad that we could be helpful in anybody learning about elections in their

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area and just anybody who's curious about what's going on around this great country

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of ours.

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So, before we start, there are a couple of changes.

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I promised if any Cook PVI things changed, I would discuss them.

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For example, a couple of the Senate races have changed.

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The Pennsylvania race, which was lean Democratic between Bob Casey and challenger Dave McCormick,

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is now considered toss-up.

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And also the seat in Nebraska, where Deb Fischer is facing off against challenger independent

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candidate Dan Osborne moved from likely to lean.

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So Fischer still has an edge, but a smaller one from when the election season started.

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We also have a new toss-up House race for the Republicans, Pennsylvania's 10th district,

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where incumbent Representative Scott Perry is facing former news anchor Democrat Janelle

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Stelson.

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So those are the only major changes as of this taping.

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And it just goes to show you how we're nearly a week before the election and ratings still

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change based on the political climate.

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It's just a fascinating thing, isn't it?

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So for this edition before the election, I did want to take a moment to discuss the

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forecast at FiveThirtyEight.com, which is a website we use all the time for polling.

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Now I've been following FiveThirtyEight and their election forecasts for many years, ever

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since 2016.

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So compared to the Cook PVI, we'll take a look at that.

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So according to their sources, the battle for the Senate is pretty much taken by the

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Republicans.

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According to their model, Republicans have an 88% chance of winning the Senate compared

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to Democrats who only have a 12% chance.

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So it looks very good for them.

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Of course, they do say don't take that into credit because you really never know what's

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going to happen until election day.

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Like we always say here on the show, the only poll that matters is the one on election day.

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And I remember years ago, they made a good analogy because in 2018, they predicted that

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the Democrats would win the House with an 85% margin.

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And they said in that article that suppose you went on a plane and they said this plane

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has a 15% chance of crashing, you'd probably think a little bit before you hop on the plane.

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It's still a bit nerve wracking.

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And in a way that kind of is the same analogy here.

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Of course, we all know the Democrats did win the House in 2018.

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But you know, even with the sudden surge of Dan Osborne in Nebraska, as we've mentioned

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a couple of times on the show before, really anything can happen between now and the election.

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Well moving on to the much more closer things, according to their model, in the House, Republicans

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have a 52% chance of winning compared to Democrats' 48% chance.

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That's much more slimmer.

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And according to them, it still says, as we mentioned a couple weeks back on the Republican

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representative toss up look, that the 45th district race between incumbent Republican

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Michelle Steele and challenger Democrat Derek Tran is set to be the closest race for the

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House of Representatives, with the forecasted margin of victory being even.

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And it's crazy because some of the close races have the Democrats favored by.2,.8, Republicans

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favored by.9, 1.1.

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No, this is even.

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Literally 50-50.

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And a lot of the races we mentioned are set to be in that real toss up area.

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Although compared to the Cook PVI, 538 only has seven toss up races compared to the, I

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want to say, near 25 that the Cook PVI has.

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So they really look at not just the polling, but also predicted polling, expert ratings,

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and things like that.

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They take a lot into account.

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It's very impressive.

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And then we'll talk about the big one.

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The race to decide who will be the 47th president of the United States.

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I know I didn't talk a lot about the presidential race this year.

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And I did mention that way back in March or February, back when it was Joe Biden versus

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Donald Trump for the election.

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Because you can tune into any podcast, not really a political podcast, but any podcast

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these days, and learn a thing or two about the presidential race.

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And it could be swayed or not swayed.

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And I just wanted to focus on some of the races down ballot in this great country of

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ours.

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So yeah, that's kind of why I didn't focus.

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But we still got a week to go.

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So let's take a look at it here.

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According to 538's model, it's just as close as the House of Representatives race.

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According to their model, Donald Trump has a 53% chance of winning compared to Kamala

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Harris with a 47% chance.

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And to them, the states to look at are Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania,

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Wisconsin, and Nevada, which as of this point, has the closest margin of victory with Trump

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with plus 0.2 points.

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Wisconsin's not far behind with 0.3 in favor of Harris.

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Then there's Pennsylvania, which is favored Trump, 0.4.

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And then there's Michigan, which is favored Harris, 0.5.

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So those numbers are very likely going to change over the next week or so.

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We'll just have to wait and see.

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So I would highly suggest going online to 538.com and looking at these four casts yourself

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if you are interested, because it is fascinating stuff, really.

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So with that, there's not much left for me to say except what I always say at the end

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of every show.

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And at this time, this sentence is much more important than it has been over the last few

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months.

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And it's the last time I'm going to say this sentence before the election.

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And I've always been meaningful because I've never been one to tell people who to vote

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for.

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Like I don't go up to someone and say, hey, vote for this, vote for that, vote for this.

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I used to be like that, but then I realized stuff like that only creates division.

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I mean, you could say I'm voting for so and so, but you don't have to.

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That's the way I see it.

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So I will say it.

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And this time, I truly mean it because it's only a week away.

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You don't have much of an excuse.

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You can vote early, drop your ballot off in a drop box if your state has them, go to the

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polls in person on Tuesday, maybe even before, depending on which state you are.

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Be sure to check your state's election laws.

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And as I always say, I don't care who you vote for, but I do care that you vote.

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So please do, please perform your civic duty and cast your ballot.

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It's very important.

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No matter where you live, I ask you, please, please do so.

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Thank you all for listening to Driscoll's election dissection.

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If you would like to learn more about the show, go online to Algedproductions.com and

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be sure to listen on any podcasting form you like.

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Thank you all for listening and I will see you all very soon.

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Don't forget to vote.

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This episode was brought to you by Algid Productions LLC. Thank you for listening!