Decision Desk: Republicans Now Favored to Win Senate in Midterms

A sign reminds voters they need photo ID to vote at polling station in Nashville, Tenn., on Nov. 6, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Election reporting service Decision Desk said Friday that Republicans are now favored to win the U.S. Senate during the 2022 midterm elections next month, noting that it’s the first time the company has made such a prediction.

“Republicans are favored to win control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since we released our 2022 Elections Forecast,” said the company, adding that its modeling predicts that Republicans have a 50.4 percent chance of taking back the upper chamber. Further, Republicans are predicted to take 51 seats to Democrats’ 49, according to the website.

It comes days after debates in several key states, including Pennsylvania. Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, squared off against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, in which Fetterman struggled to speak and form coherent sentences months after he suffered a stroke.

The television doctor now has a 53.1 percent chance of winning, “but the race remains a toss-up,” it said.

Decision Desk says that Oz is now favored to win Pennsylvania’s seat by a slim margin, while Republicans are hovering around 50 percent in Georgia and Nevada. The site also said that Senate Republican candidate J.D. Vance has a 75 percent chance of winning Ohio’s seat as he faces off against Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), while Republicans are also favored in Florida and Wisconsin.

Despite the grim analysis of Fetterman’s debate, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was caught on a hot mic speaking to President Joe Biden at an event in Syracuse, New York, in which he said that the debate “didn’t hurt us too much.” But he also said that in another state, “we’re in danger of losing that seat,” although it’s unclear what he was referring to.

Several oddsmaking websites, meanwhile, have recently predicted that Republicans will control both the House and Senate after the midterms, following the Oz–Fetterman debate.

The GOP only needs to take five seats to retake the House, while the Senate stands at 50–50 with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaker for Democrats. Generally, in recent decades, the party of the president tends to lose seats during midterm elections.

In recent polls, voters have expressed concerns about the rising cost of living due to inflation, gas prices, and the surge in violent crime, which Republican candidates have made the focus of their campaigns. Democrats are focusing messaging around abortion access following the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

Ahead of the Nov. 8 midterms, as of Friday, the U.S. Elections Project says that some 17 million people have cast mail-in ballots or voted early in person in states that have reported that data.