The Presidential Records Act (PRA) clearly states that "Upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office ... the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody," of Presidential Records. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2008-title44/html/USCODE-2008-title44-chap22.htm#:~:text=Upon%20the%20conclusion,of%20this%20Act.

It defines Presidential records as, "documentary materials ... created or received by the President," his staff, or anyone whose job it is to, "advise or assist the President," related to their presidential duties. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2008-title44/html/USCODE-2008-title44-chap22.htm#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Cpersonal,transacting%20Government%20business%3B

Personal records are defined as, "diaries, journals, or other personal notes ... which are not prepared or utilized for," Government business. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2008-title44/html/USCODE-2008-title44-chap22.htm#:~:text=The%20term%20%E2%80%9Cpersonal,transacting%20Government%20business%3B

There is no bartering. No negotiation. One could see a disagreement on  whether certain items are personal or presidential but that should be resolved, "upon their creation or receipt." Not at the end of one's term.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2008-title44/html/USCODE-2008-title44-chap22.htm#:~:text=Documentary%20materials%20produced,be%20filed%20separately.

There is no world in which nuclear secrets, attack plans, or information about defense vulnerabilities could possibly be considered personal.

The Presidential Records Act: Custody of Presidential Records

Great piece by @Nate_Cohn over at @NYTimes, but as others have pointed out, using 2018 – the last time Trump was not on the ballot – might be the more relevant comparison. So I decided to do a similar analysis using the 2018 polls. Here's what I found:

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1569315284745322497

The polls were actually pretty good in 2018, and some – especially in NV and to a lesser extent WI – underestimated Democrats. The exception being Ohio, which pollster still haven't figured out how to poll accurately. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRN7gVgIv-_DncyVrlv5YEj6zFDGwTAfPXKVHOojUuu-JVt1XXE82s14EURhvivLMVnZZx9gHF-43jP/pubhtml#


At the end of the day, the only outcomes that are changed by applying the 2018 polling error is Wisonsin Gov and Ohio Senate but, we kinda already knew Tim Ryan wasn't going to win.

Nonetheless, subscribe to Nat'es newsletter. It will definitely be worth your while!

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1569315684491952130

2022 Polls with 2018's Polling Error

I think people are underestimating how likely it is that we're in at least as favorable an environment for Democrats as we were in 2020. 

Yes, Democrats are only ahead on the Congressional ballot by 1.2% at the time of this writing, whereas in 2020 they were ahead by 7.3%. But the polling in 2020 was notoriously bad. Democrats only wound up winning the House popular vote by 3.1%. That's a 4.2% miss!

In 2018 – when Trump was not on the ballot – the generic ballot got things exactly right. It predicted Democrats winning by 8.6% and they won the two-party vote by 8.6%.

If we assume the generic ballot is correct, or at least close to correct (lets say ±2%, which is between the 4% error 2020 and the 0% error in 2018), then the environment is anywhere from R+1 to D+3. So either slightly worse than 2020 or about the same.

But we also have other figures to go by, namely special elections. The advantage of special elections is that they aren't polls. They're actually elections where people go out and make their choice. 

The disadvantage is that they are usually low turnout affairs that attract only the most politically engaged. Still, they usually are pretty predictive. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/9/1698453/-Special-elections-are-correlated-with-House-election-results-and-that-s-good-news-for-Democrats

In the special elections since Dobbs, Democrats have been overperforming by between 7 and 11 points (depending on how you count Alaska). https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-democrats-win-in-alaska-tells-us-about-november/#:~:text=If%20you%20plug%20in%20Alaska%E2%80%99s%20first%2Dround%20numbers%20(the%20ones%20that%20are%20good%20for%20Republicans)%2C%20the%20average%20Democratic%20overperformance%20in%20special%20elections%20since%20Dobbs%20is%207%20points.%20If%20you%20use%20the%20final%2Dround%20numbers%20(i.e.%2C%20Peltola%E2%80%99s%203%2Dpoint%20defeat%20of%20Palin)%2C%20it%E2%80%99s%2011%20points.

So based on the generic ballot and special elections we can say we're in anywhere from an R+1 environment to a D+11 environment. To be clear, I don't think we're in a D+11 environment, so let's use D+7 (the conservative calculation of special elections) as our high end. 

If the environment is anywhere from R+1 to D+7, the median would be D+3. That puts us in basically the exact same environment we were in in 2020, when Democrats won 222 seats.

So Democrats should expect to win 222 seats? Not so fast. You forgot about redistricting! There's a number of different ways to calculate the effect of redistricting but I think the easiest way is to look at how many district Biden won. 

On the old map Biden carried 224 districts. On the new map he would have carried 225, according to @redistricter. But Democrats ran 1.5% (or 2 seats) behind Biden; one of the reasons their House majority is so thin. 

So instead we can look at each district's partisan lean or PVI, using data from @FiveThirtyEight. In a D+3 year Democrats should expect to win every district with a PVI >R+3. That gives us a final result of 220D-215R. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17T_2jDuRdbuQzxettFAKQp5a0Fb82DzW2Qj6xTa3E6s/edit#gid=810299538

In an R+1 year it would be 230R-205D. A D+7 year would give Dems 236 seats, one more than they won in 2018, which makes me think we're not in a D+7 environment.


Another way of looking at it is to use @fairvote's Monopoly Politics House Projections, which allow you to estimate each party's share of seats based on different electoral environments.

https://twitter.com/DebTheOtis/status/1557724129230479360

In a D+3 environment there are 218 safe/lean D seats, 181 safe/lean R seats, and 36 toss-ups. 218 is the exact number you need to win the House.

An R+1 environment gives us 209R-183D with 43 toss-ups. They don't allow us to project D+7, but back to the napkin calulation tells me that would be about 232 safe/lean D seats.

So going by @FairVote Democrats could expect to win anywhere from 183 seats (an R+1 environment where Republicans win all the toss-ups) to 254 seats (a D+3 environment where Democrats win all the toss-ups) with the median being 218.5. 

A D+7 environment where Dems win all toss-ups would get them close to 280 seats but nobody's had that kind of majority since the 1970s so I'm going to assume that's not going to happen.

Going by PVI we're looking at Democrats winning anywhere from 205 to 236, with the median being 220.5. 

So depending on how we calculate it, based on my reading of the current environment, Democrats are favored to win around 218.5-220.5 seats. I guess this was a long winded way of me saying that things are really freakin' close! 

Also someone's gonna have to be chopped in half. (Marah Palintola anyone?) Ranked Choice Voting is hard!