Tomorrow is the day. Here's how we'll cover it, and how to follow along.
Watch live
I'm going live at 5:45 pm Eastern (2:45 pm Pacific), right before the first polls close. Watch on YouTube or on X (@justin_hart). Our forecast will be on screen the whole time, updating as results come in.
The one number to watch
Every result tells us a little about how far off the polls were. Put the first hour's races together and, by about 8 pm Eastern, we'll know the polls' miss to within about a point. That one number decides the night.
Our forecast gives Democrats a 75% chance at the Senate and 96% at the House. Republicans need the polls to overrate Democrats by about 2 points to be favored to keep the Senate. In 2020 the polls were off by 3.9.
What to watch, hour by hour (Eastern)
6 pm: Kentucky's 6th district is the first race on our watch list. We expect the Republican by about 1.
7 pm: Georgia governor, the Florida Senate race and South Carolina.
7:30 pm: Ohio, the first coin-flip Senate race. We expect Brown by about 2. If Husted leads by more than a point, it's a red night. If Brown is up 5 or more, it's a blue one.
8 pm: Texas, Michigan, Kansas and Maine. By now, about 88% of any polling miss is visible.
9 pm: Iowa and Nebraska, Republicans' best chances to hold on.
Midnight: Alaska. It counts for days, so if the Senate comes down to Alaska, we won't know Tuesday night.
Follow along
Free: our live election-night page shows the polling-miss meter and the Senate and House odds, updating all night: members.rationalground.com/election-night
Members: the full board. The path to 51 with our coin-flip coins landing as races are called, every race we're watching in poll-closing order with the blue and red signs, the Election Day math for each close Senate race, our live notes, and a scorecard of how Claude, ChatGPT and Grok called it.
Last call: $56 for a full year
Our election special is good through Election Day: $56 for your first year of Rational Ground, 20% off. Paid subscribers get the members' site: the full forecast for every Senate, House and governor race, the AI Anchor Desk, every outside dollar race by race, the early vote, and our COVID FOIA database.
Get in at members.rationalground.com.
On Wednesday I'll score my predictions, our forecast and the AIs against the results, right or wrong.
See you tomorrow night.
Justin