Ratings Update: Republicans and Democrats Gain in Under-the-Radar Races

We have four changes for this week, two in favor of Democrats and two in favor of Republicans. Going forward, we’ll be providing weekly updates as we close out this 2022 election cycle.

Statewide Race Changes

First, in New Hampshire, we gave the benefit of the doubt to Don Bolduc in this race when he won the nomination just under three weeks ago. However, polling since then hasn’t shown much of a race. Of the four September polls we got from the state, Hassan was above 50% in three of them, and two of those were LV polls. Republicans are still set to spend big here, but they’ll have to knock Hassan down fast from her current standing while propping up an unpopular and ideologically out-of-step candidate. I just don’t know if there’s the time left to do it. So, this races moves from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic.

In Pennsylvania, we have a race shift that’s been coming now for some time. While Mehmet Oz has been improving his margins in the Senate race against John Fetterman since Labor Day, it’s been the opposite in the gubernatorial race. Josh Shapiro has only improved since then against Mastriano, whose mythical general election pivot never came. Not helping is the fact that Mastriano is cash-strapped for a gubernatorial campaign, having just under 400K in the bank at the last financial reports. That is bad. In fact, Mastriano has only just now been able to go on TV, with a singular ad. It’s not impossible, but Mastriano probably needs that godly miracle he thinks is coming to save his campaign.

House Rating Changes

We have two ratings changes in House races. First, there’s a somewhat surprising one in North Carolina. North Carolina’s 1st was a district that seemed to be moving off the board in the late summer due to candidate quality issues with Republican nominee Sandy Smith. However, current spending tells us another story – the DCCC has placed multiple high-money buys in the district recently. This comes along with reporting that Democrats may be seeing issues with black turnout showing up in their polling. That would impact this 41% VAP Black, Republican-trending seat that only went for Biden by 7.3%. With that in mind, we’re moving this back to Leans Democratic.

Finally, there’s Oregon’s 6th congressional district. This was one we really didn’t expect. If there was a Likely Democratic seat in Oregon we saw moving first, it would’ve been the more rural OR-04. However, both internals and spending from both sides tells a story that this is a legitimate race. Democrat Andrea Salinas is yet to release an internal that shows her up by more than 3 points, and Republican internals have predictably shown Mike Erickson up. This is not one we expected, but the truth is all the signs are there. Along with competitive Gubernatorial and legislative races that could have some effect, this is now a Leans Democratic race.

State of Play

As of right now, Elections Daily ratings are the following:

• In the House, we have 217 seats rated as Republican, 194 as Democratic, and 24 as Tossups; 218 seats are needed for a majority.
• In the Senate, we have 49 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and three tossups. Due to the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats only need 50 Senators to control the Senate while Republicans will need 51.
• In the Gubernatorial races, we expect two states (Massachusetts and Maryland) to flip from Republican to Democratic and one state (Kansas) to flip from Democratic to Republican. We have four states (Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Wisconsin) rated as Tossups.