Geoff Bacino, Founder/CEO, Bacino & Associates

With less than a month to go until election day, the White House, Senate and House are still all up for grabs. Since becoming the nominee, Vice President Harris has done a good job of consolidating support among Democrats, but the final vote tally will be close as it has been since 2000. During that time, Republicans have only won the popular vote once (George W. Bush in 2004), yet they have still managed to win two other elections – George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016. It is this possibility that keeps Democrats up at night.

VP Harris holds a 3- to 5-point lead nationally, but this election will again come down to seven states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. At this writing, neither candidate has more than a two-point lead in any of the swing states.

The Senate appears to be headed to Republican control regardless of which candidate wins the White House. When Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) decided not to run, his seat moved to the GOP column. Governor Jim Justice (R) currently leads his challenger, Glenn Elliott, by over 30 points. With West Virginia gone, attention turns to which incumbent seat the Republicans could pry from the Democrats. Democratic candidates currently lead in Arizona (Gallego vs. Lake), Ohio (Brown vs. Moreno) and Wisconsin (Baldwin vs. Hovde). Unfortunately for the Democrats, three-term Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) trails challenger Tim Sheehy in most polls. This would give the Republicans 51 votes in the Senate and would return control to the GOP.

For credit unions, the two biggest impacts of a Republican majority in the Senate would be Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) taking over as the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee and the Republicans having ‘veto’ authority over nominations to boards, including the NCUA. The next seat to expire on the NCUA Board is that of Vice Chair Hauptman, who is the lone Republican on the Board. He would have to be replaced by a Republican, but a GOP-controlled Senate could influence that nomination by letting the White House know which potential nominees might have trouble getting confirmed.

On the House side, the situation is the reverse of the Senate. Republicans are holding onto a small majority that is likely to swing to Democratic control when the dust clears on Election Day. Surprisingly, California and New York appear to be the two swing states on the House side. There are a number of races in these two traditionally blue states that will determine House control. The momentum is on the side of the Democrats, but they still need to get their voters to the polls.

No matter which candidate wins the White House, he or she will most likely take office without a majority in both the Senate and the House. This has only happened five times since Teddy Roosevelt was President – and all those Presidents were Republican. These were Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and both George HW and George W. Bush.

There will be a special edition of the Bacino Report with our celebrity predictions coming out later this month. Contact Bacino & Associates here.