A primer for what awaits this fall
You read a lot of growth-oriented articles as a Substack “creator.” I know a lot of talented writers who just can’t get started here because now, unlike 2022 when I started, there is a boatload of people trying to make a buck or two, or even a million. The platform has no shortage of disgraced media blowhards who’ve been sent packing, and have brought email lists several hundred thousand strong with them to immediately rise to purple check badge status (over 10,000 paid subscribers). There are also your garden variety conservative influencers here who check it out and realize the users here expect proficiency in writing, and then dodge out when they realize they’d rather swipe at people on X all day in 280 characters or less.
I got started at the right time here, in the middle of America’s craving for information related to election corruption. My two biggest peaks of paid subscriber growth, not counting my launch, were in November 2022 and November 2024 as I made election predictions and recapped results. The 2024 cycle pushed me out of a niche bubble and more into a realm of battle-tested forecasters – because I got all the presidential races right (56 for 56).
With that said, I expect a lot of people will find this newsletter in the coming weeks as I start making “calls” on the 2026 midterms. I will constantly route them back to today’s post so they understand what I’m doing, because this year is going to be different than a presidential year. As much as I’d like to be right on every race, I consider it a more important point to paint an accurate picture of the election field for readers than I do in turning this into a carnival game of how many picks were right.
Spoiler Alert: I don’t think I’m going to get all 506 marquee races right this year (435 House, 35 Senate, 36 Governor). That represents nine times more races than I predicted in 2024, when I didn’t take a stab at the House or Senate counts (although I covered the races individually). Still, with so many lies to sift through every day and the smoke and mirrors of polling always present, there is major demand for this reminder:
There are two types of races.
Those that can be won by either side, and those that are already decided. The first group, obviously, comes in a variety of ranges, like a candidate’s ability to close a gap of five points (like AZ Governor), or a race that appears to be headed for a photo finish (like AZ-1 or VA-2).
What will my forecasts look like?
As “election season” rolled on in 2024, it became more and more obvious that President Trump was going to win. As I broke down in my book, The American War on Election Corruption, each passing day made the picture that much more clear. President Trump’s gambit to promote early and mail voting, which election integrity purists rightly hate, caused the GOP to run out to advantages in states they almost always need major Election Day strength to win. Arizona was long gone before the calendar turned to November for Harris, and so was North Carolina. She didn’t have the firewall she needed in Pennsylvania, and those not lost in polling noise knew it.
Likewise, there are races I’m watching today that will change (for better or for worse) when we get some data. Pennsylvania starts sending ballots out within two weeks, and not long after that we will have an idea how things may break in PA-7, PA-8, and PA-10 – the three critical Republican defenses for the U.S. House majority.
In the first grouping of elections – those that are already decided – you can expect solid predictions. GA-11 will go Republican, MA-4 will go Democrat – both with 100% certainty. I’ve already been writing about these safe seats for most of the year.
The second group of elections – those that are legitimate races – will bring much greater detail so you can understand down to the finest detail what makes them races. Where possible (not bound under confidentiality), I may share some of my proprietary analytics highlighting exactly which demographics and district regions will swing the biggest stick in each race, such as Scott Perry’s defense of PA-10:
For states that have a steady trickle of mail-in ballots, I’ll probably wait until the end to give my estimates. They’ll look something like this:
You can expect individual profiles for each decisive race. If detailed analysis is for you, now would be a good time to become a paid subscriber. You’ll understand why my readership grows by leaps and bounds during election season every other year.
Nebraska’s Osborn Ain’t Dumb
Yesterday, some gold found its way online courtesy of the RNC’s opposition research channels:
“🚨NEW — Nebraska Democrat Dan Osborn goes on an UNHINGED rant admitting he’s a fraud too afraid to tell voters what he actually thinks: ‘I have people recording me, I can’t say I want to abolish ICE…I’ll be f*cked…F*ck no Jane, that’s not how I win.'” — RNC Research (@RNCResearch), September 1, 2026
This is straight from the mouth of “independent” Dan Osborn, who is running for the second straight cycle trying to take out a Nebraska GOP Senator (this time, Pete Ricketts). He’s running again as a non-partisan, although he knows he will need to run the gauntlet with the Democrat vote (hence the * in the title of today’s article) and siphon major GOP support, which he very successfully did in a stealth effort in 2024 despite a Trump blowout in the state:
Granted, Deb Fischer has all the charisma of a rusted farm tool and ran a lazy campaign counting on party ID to come through (and it did), but Osborn ran 13.8% ahead of Harris in his own losing battle. This year ostensibly provides a more favorable environment for Osborn given the dynamics of a GOP president’s midterm, but now he’s not going to catch anyone by surprise and he’s up against the substantial finances of the Ricketts machine. Sometimes all it takes is a candid moment on an audio recording to help show you that heartland Democrats realize how insane their coastal counterparts are.
Go listen to the audio embedded in that X post again:
“I have people recording me, I can’t say I want to abolish ICE…I’ll be f*cked…F*ck no Jane, that’s not how I win.”
This is why I’ve been telling people to exercise a little tactical patience and follow Napoleon’s golden rule:
Osborn is running as an independent because the Democrat brand is trash, and a total non-starter in the heart of the country, which now includes the Industrial and Upper Midwest. Let the DSA take over the Democrats, and get a little electoral reform mixed in, and you’ll see a wholesale political transformation in America like we haven’t seen since the dawn of the New Deal.
Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.
