22 Days Out. A Snapshot In Time Of The Critical 2022 Races. Updated

I like to think about this as a Public Service Announcement for my readers who, while interested in politics, and more importantly the direction the country is going, nonetheless have issues like jobs, spouses, children and wives that keep you from spending all day switching from MSNBC to CNN, with an occasional short stop at FUX News to see what’s going on on Jupiter.

This article is going to be a series of bullet point entries showing the current state of the races for critical seats. It will come in 2 parts. The close and toss up races that will decide control of the US Senate in November, followed by critical state races that could impact the results of the 2024 presidential election, such as Governor and Secretary of State. Each poll will be the most aggregate poll I could pull up as I wrote this. Ready?

• GA Senate – Most polls show Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock with a steady and durable lead of 3.5-4.5 points. Most polls have never shown Walker leading. The thing is that there is a 3rd party Libertarian candidate in the race. If neither one hits 50%+1, then once again there will be a runoff for the top 2 on December 6th
• NV Senate – This is the ultimate tossup. Most polls show basically a statistical dead heat, with either Cortez Masto or Laxalt +1. But as I know from almost 20 years of experience, polling in NV is for shit. The population is too transient for pollsters to get a decent voting pool to sample. The dealmaker here is whether or not somebody like Barack Obama can hit Vegas and energize the 60,000 largely Hispanic members of the SEIU to show up and vote
• NC Senate – The polling is much better in North Carolina, but no more enlightening. Almost every reputable poll shows the race between Democrat Cheri Beasley and GOP state rep Ted Buso in a statistical dead heat. Beasley is running hard on reproductive rights, and Buso is trying to run on economic issues. With NC’s voting rules, this might well not be decided on election night.
• OH Senate – Surprisingly enough, this one is a statistical coin toss. Democrat Tim Ryan is running a dream rave, and GOP candidate Hillbilly JD Vance is struggling to keep up. In both debates and advertising, each is trying to outdo the other one as the more authentic Ohio candidate. The tip point for this one may well be whether the Democrats decide to pour enough money into Ohio to offset the millions of dark money the GOP is pouring in
• WI Senate – After leading by as much as 8 points early on, Democrat Mandela Barnes has surrendered the lead to GOP incumbent Ron Johnson, whom recent polls show leading by 3 points. But Barnes has a secret weapon. Later this month former President Barack Obama is going to Milwaukee to rally the troops with Barnes. This is going to the wire, folks
• FL Senate – This one shows GOP incumbent Marco Rubio with a serviceable 4-5 point lead over Democrat Val Demmings. But there may be frigging in the rigging. Rubio is still whining about fundraising, and he is about to appear in debate with Demmings. And if Rubio’s performance history behind a podium is anything to go by, Demmings is by now means out of this race
• AZ Senate – This one almost seems to be on cruise control. From the start, Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly has enjoyed a durable and lasting lead of 6-8 point’s over election denial GOP candidate Blake Masters. Trump even slew into Arizona to campaign for Masters, as well as gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, but it doesn’t seem to have moved the needle
• PA Senate – This is another one that seems to be under control. From the start, Democrat John Fetterman has enjoyed a lead over cruise ship doctor Mehmet Oz, as high as 14 points. It’s now settled into a closer than expected +6 for Fetterman, and Oz doesn’t seem to have any answer for Fetterman’s aggressive, progressive messaging, especially on social media
• The two wild cards – Going into 2022, there were 2 races that the Democrats were worried about, NH and CO. But thanks to far right GOP  candidates, both Democrats have settled into comfortable +8 leads in both races
• UT Senate – OK, now for one I never thought I’d have to write about, Mike Lee’s Utah Senate seat. But independent candidate Evan McMullin, backed by Utah Democrats who didn’t even nominate a Senate candidate in the primaries, is within 4 points of Lee. Lee is so desperate that he actually went onto Fucker Carlson’s show to beg his fellow Senator, Mitt Romney to hang together and endorse him. You just keep holding your breath on that one, Mike

That does it for the topical Senate races in November that will determine the control of the US Senate for the last 2 years. But there’s one secret weapon that the Democrats have going into the last 3 weeks of the election season I want to touch on.

And it’s this. Going into the last 3 weeks, the Democrats, the DNC, the DNCC, the DSCC and the Democratic candidates themselves have a huge advantage over the GOP in terms of cash on hand to spend. And this is critical. Because the GOP is trying to combat that discrepancy by pumping in millions of dollars in dark money Super PAC money. But Super PAC’s have to pay a premium price for air time, and they are restricted to negative advertising. The DNC, the DSCC and the DCCC can contribute directly to candidate campaigns. And the air time for candidate campaigns is at a discount, giving them more bang for their buck. And direct advertising allows the candidats to control their own messaging. Those disparities could make all the difference.

And now I must apologize. This recap of the battleground Senate races took a little longer than I thought it would. As a result, I’m going to post this, and then work out a follow up article for the critical statewide races going into November. With luck, it will be done tonight.

Update – Once again I must apologize. I went in to do the donkey work in polling to write the follow up article on the critical statewide races that could shape 2024. But sadly, my rudimentary search skills were insufficient for me to get accurate pollihng data on statewide races for positions such as Secretary of State, and Attorney General. As such, I didn’t have suffieient data to put together a de cent article. I apologize for letting you all down.