
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In the days when voters cast their ballots on a single day, I would suggest that the election was over several weeks earlier. ; Now that millions of Americans will have cast their ballots days – and even weeks &#8212; before Election Day, that claim is even more legitimate. ; While we may not KNOW the outcome, the collective vote is already predetermined.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">That is simply because virtually every registered voter in America already knows for which party or candidate they will vote – or even if they will vote at all. ; ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The so-called “undecided” voters have already made up their minds. ; The small percentage of voters who say they are still undecided in the 30 days before Election Day has pretty much decided. ; In fact, the “undecides” generally are leaners from the onset – and they fall as they lean. ; ;</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Major events – positive or negative – can have some impact on the undecided prior to the 30-day window. ; After that, the impact of a major surprise is negligible. ; The so-called “October Surprise” may draw media attention but rarely changes the pending outcome of an election. ; Some suggest the October Surprise is not as effective as political strategists believe because voters are cynical about negative information generated in the closing days of a campaign.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there was an organization called The Fair Campaign Practices Committee that referred to campaigns in terms of dirty tricks and dishonest claims. ; One of the admonitions of the Committee was to disregard any bad news that pops up in the last month of a campaign season.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">If you survey your family and friends within 30 days of Election Day, you are not likely to find many – and probably none – who do not know if they are going to vote, and for whom.  ; And certainly, there are no large blocks of voter demographics that are open to persuasion in the final days.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Early voting obviously makes my contention that this election is virtually over more compelling. ; Folks in some states have been casting ballots for days and weeks already. ; Their votes are locked in and cannot be changed by any last-minute switch based on new information or an October Surprise.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">(Early voting in excess of more than 10 days ahead of an election is a corruption of the system, but I will save that analysis for a later commentary.)</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, what about that last minute momentum we see in polling results – mostly from the undecides starting to give their preferences? ; We must first understand that polling data is a lagging indicator. ; At best, it will tell us what may have been happening days or weeks in the past – and that is if their information can be trusted at all. ; In recent years, pollsters have been notoriously inaccurate in predicting outcomes. ; The actual vote has often been outside their self-proclaimed “margin of error.”</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Recent polls suggest that Republican candidates are picking up strength. ; The momentum is in the GOP’s favor. ; In fact, the GOP has arguably already gained as much strength as it is going to get. ; While polls report the past, the outcomes of the vast majority of the thousands of candidacies across the nation are already determined &#8212; unknown, but determined, nonetheless.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Efforts to persuade or influence voter choice in the last weeks of a campaign are largely a waste of money. ; The only potentially effective use of resources is to get voters to the polls.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">In a very real sense, the 2022 Midterm Election is largely over. ; However, the punditry to attempt to predict outcomes is a completely different process. ; It is not a matter of trying to divine what the voters will do, but what they have already decided. ; Like the Academy Awards, the names of the winners are known, but not revealed until the envelope is opened.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">My admittedly foggy crystal ball tells me that Republicans have a 90 percent chance of taking the House … a 55/45 chance of taking the Senate. ; The majority of those Republicans who Democrats and the media have labeled MAGA candidates, election deniers, and insurrectionists – and who Democrats have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help them win their Republican primaries – will win their races.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It will be a ; good day for Republicans across the nation.</p>



<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So, there ‘tis.</p>

The midterm election is over … just a matter of tallying the votes
