We’re at the point in election season when every campaign is ‘surging,’ every inbox message is marked URGENT, and every operative can explain why the poll showing their candidate behind is secretly great news. I have spent enough time around campaigns to have some sympathy for this behavior. Not enough to believe it, but some.
The first thing I keep coming back to is the national mood. Reuters and Ipsos surveyed Americans October 16–19, and whatever one thinks of a particular horse-race number, it’s a useful check against the alternate reality produced by partisan fundraising emails. Polls aren’t ballots. They do tell us what people are willing to say right now, and that’s not nothing. The important question isn’t ‘Can I find one number that comforts me?’ It’s whether several different signals are pointing in the same direction.
Then there’s the math. Republicans are currently defending a 53–47 Senate majority and a much tighter House advantage. Those are not interchangeable challenges. The House can turn on a broad national swing across suburban and competitive districts. The Senate depends on the peculiarities of individual states and candidates. You can have a pretty lousy national election and still hold a chamber. You can also ‘win’ the chamber and discover that voters were trying to send you a message.
I am also fascinated by the money, partly because I work in communications and partly because it is so often misunderstood. Already this cycle, more than $3.8 billion in political advertising has hit the airwaves nationally. That is an extraordinary amount of money devoted to convincing people that the other side is terrifying, incompetent, or both. And yet, voters are still capable of looking at their grocery bills and asking what either party intends to do about them. The sheer volume of an ad campaign does not make its message good.
I mean, just look at MAGA Inc.’s late spending blitz of more than $277 million on television and direct mail in the final six weeks, aimed at critical Republican contests. This isn’t a neat national ad-spending total and it isn’t all candidate money; it is a particular super PAC’s effort. But it tells us something important. If a political operation is pouring that kind of money into a defensive fight, the people signing the checks are not behaving as though everything is fine.
Of course, defensive spending isn’t a prophecy. Sometimes you spend heavily because a seat is winnable. Sometimes because losing it would be catastrophic. Sometimes because donors insist. What I wish we did more often is ask what the spending buys besides exposure. Does the ad answer a question? Does it speak to a problem? Or is it just another clip designed to make the already-convinced feel more convinced?
I suspect a lot of voters are exhausted by the performance of politics. That’s my interpretation, not a poll result. But it’s hard not to notice how much national messaging revolves around personalities while ordinary people are talking about cost of living, insurance, and whether the government can perform its basic functions. Campaigns can test every shade of blue in an ad. They cannot A/B-test their way out of a credibility problem.
So where does that leave us? I can see a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. I can see a bigger Democratic night if close races break together. I can also see Republicans outperforming the current mood if their turnout machine does its job. What I cannot see is a responsible reason to declare the outcome certain before anyone finishes voting.
If you’re a Republican, the temptation will be to call anything short of catastrophe a mandate. If you’re a Democrat, the temptation will be to interpret every close contest as proof of an inevitable realignment. I would resist both. Election night gives us results. Understanding those results takes a little more humility than either party is famous for.