How Election Week 2022 Went Down
According to FiveThirtyEight’s preelection forecast, the Republican candidates in Arizona and Nevada’s governors races were slightly favored. We have Democrats leading in both races right now — but be sure to check out the share of votes reporting. There’s still a ways to go! Arizona’s remaining absentee ballots will likely take days to count, and Nevada accepts mail ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive by Nov. 12, so results may continue to roll in through Nov. 15.
The status of ‘Lean Republican’ governors races
Results in races where the Republican candidate had between a 60 percent and 75 percent chance of winning, according to the Deluxe version of FiveThirtyEight’s final preelection forecast, as of 1:55 a.m. Eastern
| race | democrat | republican | Percent reporting | Vote Margin | ABC Projection |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AZ | Hobbs | Lake | 54% | D+11.3 | |
| NV | Sisolak i | Lombardo | 54 | D+6.9 |
We obviously don’t yet know the full story — California says hi — but sometimes an important thing to monitor in an election is the trend at the end. And the trend was definitely favorable to the GOP. So with that in mind, I think it was not unreasonable to think we might end up with a better-than-average GOP result. Instead we have a better-than-average Democratic result, and potentially a strong Democratic outcome should they actually get to 51 seats in the Senate, which seems possible — although we are a long way from knowing Arizona and Nevada, not to mention Georgia’s potential runoff.
I mean, not to get too pointed here, but the lesson here is to not let hot takes and narratives influence our expectations of an election. To Jacob’s point, if you were following the data and the professional prognostications, this is not a surprising outcome. If you were listening to the Democratic dooming and Republican gloating, it is.