Democrat Senate candidate Cheri Beasley (Image: AP/Hannah Schoenbaum/Private Media)

Well, here we go.

If you’re reading this in the newsletter, or when it hits the website, or in the fax and telex versions (we still do that, right? Please reroute mine to 21230HILTONNY, and I’ll read it over a half grapefruit and a Tab tomorrow), it’s about 8.30pm on the US east coast, and there’ll be very few indicative results. We’ll add as a stop press at the bottom, hand-stamped in red ink, like the greyhound results (we still do that, right?).

There’ll be an overview on the website about 5pm. But don’t expect those to be reliable, or even indicative. Many results will take several days. Remember, each ballot has anything from 10 to dozens of separate votes to be counted (which is why voting and tabulating machines were developed; paper ballots aren’t the simple answer many people think they might be).

With those caveats, here’s some, not all, races to watch.

The Senate

New Hampshire: the votes will come in early here, with veteran Dem Maggie Hassan against Republican election-denier, girls-identifying-as-cats Don Bolduc. If Hassan isn’t creaming this guy, it’s not a good sign.

Georgia: football star Herschel Walker wants an abortion ban, no exceptions, unless you bully the woman into it, which he’s done twice. That wasn’t the woman whose head he held a gun to. It’s alright, he’s a sheriff! Well, he has a toy store badge. If Democrat Raphael Warnock can’t get 50% plus off this bozo, the race runs off in January.

North Carolina: Republican Ted Budd, former House rep, is an ordained minister who owns a gun store, homeschools his children, and is an election denier. He’s white. Democrat Cheri Beasley is the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court. She’s Black. Odds favour Budd in this once dependable red, now swing, state, but it’s a good test of the vote for Republicans who are noxious, but not crazy.

Pennsylvania: we won’t know for days whether grunge-styled, stroke-hit, reforming mayor John Fetterman has triumphed against TV and actual doctor Mehmet Oz, Trump-endorsed, surgeon-turned- Oprah star, and diet bill booster, who lives in New Jersey. 

Ohio: Days in it, as right-shifted but once sensible Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance, now a Trump-endorsed no-exceptions anti-abortion election denier, is even with Tim Ryan, a sort of rustbelt Doug Cameron.

Wisconsin: Republican Tea Party original Ron Johnson is challenged by Mandela Barnes in a pure city v country, white v Black slug-out.

Utah: on mountain time, so two hours and 40 years behind the east coast. The Democrats bowed out, leaving Trump loyalist Mike Lee to go up against anti-Trumpist Evan McMullin, a former CIA dark ops officer who has the enthusiastic support of (checks notes) the mainstream left.

Arizona: Peter Thiel protege Blake Masters got $15 million of his mentor’s money to try to take down Democrat incumbent Mark Kelly. Masters is a paleoconservative, who is a moderate on the “Great Replacement” theory, and an enthusiast for the writings of the Unabomber.

Nevada: Democrat incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto versus white Trumpist Adam Laxalt, in a barely disguised political race war in a Latinising seat.

Washington state: Democrat six-termer Patty Murray began as the “senator in tennis shoes”, a school board mom who went all the way to DC. That was the 1990s. Now she’s the ultimate Washington “insider”, i.e. an effective reformist legislator. But her public manner is old skool, no pizzazz, tending to jargon, and her opponent is Tiffany Smiley who… well, look at the name. 

Potential Democrat gains: 2 + 2 long shots,

Potential Republican gains: 6.

House of Representatives

Due to gerrymandering, there are only about 50 out of 435 truly competitive seats. Here are a few interesting ones among the true toss-ups.

Connecticut 5th: western exurban and towny seat Biden won by 10 points. The Democrat is running 2 points ahead. It was the last Republican-held New England seat, falling in 2008.

New York 3rd: Queens and Long Island. Should be reliably Democrat. Crime, or perceptions of such, are giving the GOP a chance — and a sense of how much real estate the Dems could be giving up

Michigan 3rd: around Grand Rapids, in the “mitten” part of the state. Incumbent Republican moderate Peter Meijer lost his primary to John Gibbs, a Black Trumpist and heavy conspiracy theorist. If he can hold it, things are not good, basic rationality-wise.

Ohio 13th: pure rust belt, around Akron, home of Devo. A potential measure of white working-class discontent.

Illinois 17th: covers the north-west of the state, including a four-city border nexus called the Quad Cities. Start of the Midwest, in a way. Decades of barely interrupted Democrats, it voted for Obama by 60% and, narrowly, for Trump twice. Heartland discontent bellwether. 

Texas 34th: Hispanic-heavy seat on the border and the Gulf that the Democrats lost in a special (i.e. by) election. If they can’t get it back, it’s a sign their bloc Hispanic vote is collapsing. 

California 27th: the “inland empire”, the vast ‘burbs behind LA, should be Democrat. But this is ground zero for high rent, crime, inflation, everything. How far it swings behind its Republican incumbent will test whether the Dems blue wall in California cities is coming down. 

State governors

New York: former Republican congressman Lee Zeldin may cruise to victory, on the basis of persistent fears of rising crime. Murder is up 30%; other crimes are down. But they can be massaged. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has turned itself into a Zeldin flyer, issued daily. 

Wisconsin: if Democrat Tony Evers loses, Republicans may have a clean sweep of the state — and lock that down forever, using a controlled Supreme Court.

Kansas: the Democrats won the mansion after doctrinaire libertarian Sam Brownback screwed up the state’s finances so badly, even southern Midwesterners noted.

Oklahoma: deepest red Oklahoma is under challenge from Democrat Joy Hofmeister, whose brilliant strategy is to have been a former Republican. 

Oregon: formerly safe left Democrat has a centrist Democrat independent who’s tired of the Portland crazy, splitting the vote, letting the GOP in.

Arizona: Kari Lake, Trump in cowboy heels, is not the only election-denier up for governor. But she’s the one who’ll win in a key swing state. 

Ballot measures

Kentucky has a hard-fought amendment to effectively ban abortions. Its defeat would be significant. So would the defeat of California’s pro-abortion amendment. Five states have marijuana legalisation in various forms, Nevada and others may try preferential voting. A full selection is here.

Overview: the Dems can only lose five House seats. They’ll lose 15 at least.  They can’t lose any Senate seats — it’s on 50-50. Eyes down for a full house. Fire up the mojo wire.