Finally, we turn to the US Senate which, as usual, is electing one-third of its members (in this case, the Class 3 senators) in a general election. However, what is not usual is that there are two special elections – Oklahoma’s Class 2 senator and California’s Class 3 – and because California’s Class 3 election would have occurred on November 8 regardless, this means there are two elections for California – one beginning immediately, and another for the term beginning in January. Unsurprisingly, the candidates in both California elections are the same, meaning (weirdly) there are 36 elections for 35 senators. Of course, these two races can give different results, but this would require some peculiar voting patterns across a meaningful number of voters, so we will assume that we only need to address 34 races, and we can treat California as one contest.
The remaining senators who are not up for election include 34 Democrats, 29 Republicans and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats. This means the Democrats need 14 seats to have control with the Independents and rely on the Vice President to break ties, 15 to avoid most of those ties, 16 to not rely on Independents and 17 to not need the VP either. So anything less than 13 Democrat senators in this election is a win for the Republicans, which means taking 22 races for themselves. They come into this with 21 senate seats on the line, though, so this is a net gain of one seat.
The Races
As with the Gubernatorial elections, several sources have already made predictions, and where these all agree, there is little sense in running the same numbers they have. This gives us forecasts for 27 races, leaving Republicans just three races from claiming a majority with eight options on the board.
| STATE | INCUMBENT | MEDIA PREDICTION |
| Alabama | Republican | Republican |
| Alaska | Republican | Republican |
| Arizona | Democrat | Mixed |
| Arkansas | Republican | Republican |
| California | Democrat | Democrat |
| Colorado | Democrat | Mixed |
| Connecticut | Democrat | Democrat |
| Florida | Republican | Republican |
| Georgia | Democrat | Mixed |
| Hawaii | Democrat | Democrat |
| Idaho | Republican | Republican |
| Illinois | Democrat | Democrat |
| Indiana | Republican | Republican |
| Iowa | Republican | Republican |
| Kansas | Republican | Republican |
| Kentucky | Republican | Republican |
| Louisiana | Republican | Republican |
| Maryland | Democrat | Democrat |
| Missouri | Republican | Republican |
| Nevada | Democrat | Mixed |
| New Hampshire | Democrat | Mixed |
| New York | Democrat | Democrat |
| North Carolina | Republican | Republican |
| North Dakota | Republican | Republican |
| Ohio | Republican | Republican |
| Oklahoma | Republican | Republican |
| Oklahoma* | Republican | Republican |
| Oregon | Democrat | Democrat |
| Pennsylvania | Republican | Mixed |
| South Carolina | Republican | Republican |
| South Dakota | Republican | Republican |
| Utah | Republican | Republican |
| Vermont | Democrat | Democrat |
| Washington | Democrat | Mixed |
| Wisconsin | Republican | Mixed |
[Source]
Colorado, Washington
All sources plant these two races as Democrat wins, except for the unclear political predictions of Real Clear Politics which leave these as tossups. Both have multi-term Democrat incumbents recontesting their seats who won the last election with percentages in the high 50s. In both states, despite a narrowing lead in recent times, the Democrats have never lost a poll with the single exception of a hypothetical ‘Incumbent v generic Republican’ question in Colorado ten months ago. Therefore, it seems safe to call these for the Dems.
| Democrat |
New Hampshire
Similarly, New Hampshire is broadly predicted for the Dems, with only Real Clear Politics and Politico dissenting to mark it as a tossup. Again, the polling has narrowed, but the Democrats have won the majority of these by far.
| Democrat |
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is the last senate seat where there is a majority view among media sources. Five sources mark this as Republican, the other four as a tossup. Democrats led the polling until August, even among right-wing sources like Trafalgar and Fox, but since then, blue leads have been few and far between against the two-term Republican incumbent. The hesitancy to write this off has likely been due to strong Democrat performances in Wisconsin, including a blue sweep in 2018, but this is not translating to the polls this year. (For comparison, Democrats led every poll ahead of the 2018 senate election).
| Republican |
Pennsylvania
Perhaps the most publicised contest of 2022, this race pits TV’s Dr Oz against Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman. Early polling was impressive for the Democrats but has slipped to give Oz a slight lead in the polls since October 26.
Sabato has this race leaning R, which aligns with the latest polling, but I’d also be wary about relying on numbers from the last fortnight after months of contrary results. What is apparent is that the number of undecideds has (naturally) narrowed. If this indicates that undecideds tend to fall out in Oz’s favour, things will only worsen for Fetterman. I’ll call this Republican, but this is the race I most expect to get wrong.
| Republican |
Arizona
The Cook Partisan Voting Index marks Arizona as naturally Republican, but the incumbent is a Democrat, and four of the nine media sources are colouring this one blue. The polling was remarkable for Democrats until the withdrawal of Libertarian candidate Marc Victor, and since then has still been strong, with only three of the subsequent 13 polls favouring the Republicans. There is some division in the data aggregates, with RealClearPolitics favouring the Republican while FiveThirtyEight and 270ToWin favour the Democrat, but the raw data is convincing enough for me.
| Democrat |
Nevada
Nevada polling is all over the shop, but with a preference towards the Republicans. However, Sabato was the only source willing to wager a bet on Nevada, and they had it as leaning Democrat. The Cook Partisan Voting Index has this as a Republican state, but the incumbent is a Democrat. In the closest race of 2022, a couple of factors are holding the Democrats back that will likely be decisive: Republican economic issues seem to be cutting through more than the Democrats’ focus on abortion rights, and Biden is so unpopular in the state that they sent Bill Clinton in to support instead.
| Republican |
Georgia
Sabato and FiveThirtyEight are both predicting the GOP to win in Georgia, the only calls across the senate races to go against an incumbent. Polling supports this call with the Republican candidate ahead in all aggregations and not losing a single poll in November.
| Republican |
Summary
That comes to 23 Republican and 12 Democrat senators elected in 2022 for a 2023 term of 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats and two independents. In short, Republicans are predicted to control the Senate and block much of Biden’s agenda for the second half of his presidency.
| STATE | INCUMBENT | MEDIA PREDICTION |
| Alabama | Republican | Republican |
| Alaska | Republican | Republican |
| Arizona | Democrat | Democrat |
| Arkansas | Republican | Republican |
| California | Democrat | Democrat |
| Colorado | Democrat | Democrat |
| Connecticut | Democrat | Democrat |
| Florida | Republican | Republican |
| Georgia | Democrat | Republican |
| Hawaii | Democrat | Democrat |
| Idaho | Republican | Republican |
| Illinois | Democrat | Democrat |
| Indiana | Republican | Republican |
| Iowa | Republican | Republican |
| Kansas | Republican | Republican |
| Kentucky | Republican | Republican |
| Louisiana | Republican | Republican |
| Maryland | Democrat | Democrat |
| Missouri | Republican | Republican |
| Nevada | Democrat | Republican |
| New Hampshire | Democrat | Democrat |
| New York | Democrat | Democrat |
| North Carolina | Republican | Republican |
| North Dakota | Republican | Republican |
| Ohio | Republican | Republican |
| Oklahoma | Republican | Republican |
| Oklahoma* | Republican | Republican |
| Oregon | Democrat | Democrat |
| Pennsylvania | Republican | Republican |
| South Carolina | Republican | Republican |
| South Dakota | Republican | Republican |
| Utah | Republican | Republican |
| Vermont | Democrat | Democrat |
| Washington | Democrat | Democrat |
| Wisconsin | Republican | Republican |
In 2024, 23 of the 33 senate seats up for election are currently held by Democrats or the two Independents who vote with them. That leaves little room to pick up the three seats needed to regain control. Therefore, a Republican win, as predicted here, is likely to also hold for the first half of the next Presidential term—good news for a Republican president but crippling for a Democrat.
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