2022 Senate Confidence Pool Contest

Per board rules there is no prize, monetary or otherwise, for winning this competition.

Consider these ten states which are each holding a Senate election in 2022 (note: some races, notably Georgia, may not be decided until 2023):

Arizona
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin

To enter, for each of these races choose whether D or R will win the senate seat, and then assign a confidence value from 1 to 10 to each. Each confidence value must be used exactly once. Points in the amount of the confidence value will be awarded for correct guesses and incorrect guesses will earn zero points i.e. assign 10 points to the race where you are most confident of the outcome and 1 point to the race where you are least confident. The total number of points earned will be used to rank entries from best to worst.

For example, my entry (subject to change, see below) looks like this right now…

State Party Confidence
Arizona D 1
Colorado D 9
Florida R 10
Georgia D 4
Nevada R 3
New Hampshire D 8
North Carolina R 7
Ohio R 5
Pennsylvania D 2
Wisconsin R 6

Entries will be accepted until November 7, 11:59:59 PM CT. To enter, just post one in this thread. Entries can be updated by posting again before the deadline. Most recent pre-deadline post will be the official entry. Previous entries will be ignored.

If the rules are unclear or for any reason you are unsure of how to complete your entry, just ask, either in this thread or in a DM to me.

I might be a little early starting this thread, but there’s 29 days to go and I’m in full time poll watching mode for the duration. There’s going to be some bumps.

Per board rules there is no prize, monetary or otherwise, for winning this competition.

Arizona D 6
Colorado D 9
Florida R 5
Georgia D 2
Nevada D 4
New Hampshire D 7
North Carolina R 8
Ohio D 1
Pennsylvania D 10
Wisconsin D 3

Thanks for entering Bob. I see you are aggressively optimistic about the blue team as always.

That’s a prediction of three flips for the Democrats to zero for the Republicans resulting in a 53-47 Dem senate.

I hope you’re right, but I wouldn’t bet that way.

I was tempted to flip NC as well. As much as I despise Little Marco, I think FL is a lost cause for some time.

Always the eternal pessimist here so:

State Party Confidence
Arizona R 2
Colorado D 9
Florida R 10
Georgia R 3
Nevada R 4
New Hampshire D 5
North Carolina R 7
Ohio R 8
Pennsylvania R 1
Wisconsin R 6

Which if my math is correct will give us a 52R-48D Senate.

BONUS PREDICTIONS:
The House will be 230R - 205D
Nationwide abortion ban will be passed by end of February but will be vetoed by POTUS.
The House will pass articles of impeachment for Biden, Harris, Garland and Buttigieg by the end of April.
Senate trials for all will be complete by the end of June without any removals.
Congressional investigations into Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci will be never-ending.

You must be a blast at parties. :wink:

Thank you for entering. Keep in mind you can update your entry any time you like, as many times as you like, up to midnight 11/7.

I wanna play!

State Party Confidence
Arizona R 1
Colorado D 9
Florida R 10
Georgia R 5
Nevada D 3
New Hampshire D 2
North Carolina R 4
Ohio R 7
Pennsylvania D 6
Wisconsin R 8

You’re in! Welcome Karen.

Looks like you have two D → R and one R → D for a 51R - 49D senate. This is certainly one of the more likely outcomes.

State Party Confidence
Arizona D 3
Colorado D 10
Florida R 9
Georgia D 2
Nevada R 1
New Hampshire D 7
North Carolina R 8
Ohio R 5
Pennsylvania D 6
Wisconsin R 4

I think this works out to 50/50 again. Dems pick up Penn but lose Nevada. Close holds in GA and AZ, which I could easily see going the other way.

Nice. Welcome aboard.

You have one D → R flip and one R → D flip for no change net. I have the same thing in mine. Same states too. So I think your entry is brilliant.

Keep in mind that nothing is final yet unless you want it to be.

I’ll also add, I appreciate those of you who are using markdown tables. That is great. However, if for any reason you don’t do that, it’s fine too.

Pretty much any entry where I can figure out your intent is good to go. And if I can’t figure out your intent I’ll let you know and together we can get your entry in.

All right, here’s where I am now. I have all four seats currently rated as “toss ups” by Cook Political Report breaking Republican. Historically, toss up races tend to break disproportionately for one party. I could just as easily see them all breaking Democratic, but I sense a slight momentum shift toward the Rs.

State Party Confidence
Arizona D 3
Colorado D 9
Florida R 10
Georgia R 1
Nevada R 4
New Hampshire D 8
North Carolina R 7
Ohio R 6
Pennsylvania R 2
Wisconsin R 5

Arizona D 8
Colorado D 10
Florida R 9
Georgia D 6
Nevada D 1
New Hampshire D 2
North Carolina R 5
Ohio R 7
Pennsylvania D 3
Wisconsin R 4

Welcome new entrants.

Looks like @flurb has two D → R flips for 52R - 48D senate. Certainly possible.

@JKellyMap has one R → D flip for 51D - 49R. This poster won a similarly formatted contest for swing states in the 2020 presidential election, so everyone should pay attention to what he does.

I just did a quick review of entries and every entry in so far is legal. It’s surprising how often people have trouble with, “Each confidence value must be used exactly once.”

One quick note to @Kolak_of_Twilo.

I see three D → R flips (AZ, GA, NV) and no R → D flips for 53R-47D.

Do one for governor races.

…except for Democratic-leaning Dopers in Pennsylvania. I wouldn’t want to suppress turnout with my optimism! :slight_smile:

Sorry man. You’re a market mover. Huge swaths of blue voters in Pennsylvania now think this thing is in the bag and are planning to attend a pet communication seminar instead of voting on election day.

So my prediction is more pessimistic than I thought.
I’m hoping I’m seriously off but I’ve been burned pretty much every time I’ve gotten my hopes up for the Democrats to out perform historic expectations.

I’m not sure this would be significantly different from the senate races. Lots of overlap. Not a ton of ticket splitting (maybe Georgia).

Also some in Wisconsin (alas
— if you’re a Dem and think the Senate is more important, if you had to choose).

And in Vermont, and maybe Kansas.

Good graph in new FiveThirtyEight article on the decline in gov/sen ticket splitting (scroll
about halfway down):