Four parties and a funeral: How Kalshi and a duck owned election night in DC

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Washington Secrets. It’s the morning after the night before, and we bring you all the best sights and sounds from the watch parties in the nation’s capital. Plus, what went wrong for Republicans and what went right for pollsters?Tuesday night’s buffet is laid out with sliders, pizza slices, and cold cuts. Elephant cards are set up on the tables, and John Fredericks, the Trumpy radio host, is about to start broadcasting from his watch party in the heart of Washington, D.C.His prediction of Republican holds in the House and the Senate has not wavered all year. “What you are going to see tonight is a red wave of Republican voters who are rejecting communism,” he tells Secrets on the second floor of the University Club, a glass of red wine in his hand.“They are going to put Republicans over the top,” he added. “It doesn’t mean that they like Donald Trump, but the results will shock America.”Time will tell. It is only 7 p.m., and the polls have closed in a handful of states so far.The mood is buoyant. The bar is doing a roaring trade. The consensus is clear: the House is at risk, but not so much the Senate.“Maybe it won’t be as bad as we think,” said a red-suited man as he waited to grab one of the juicy sliders.Secrets spent Tuesday on a mission to get the most out of the city’s political watch parties. After the red ties, navy suits and older faces at the University Club, the next stop is signposted by a duck on the sidewalk.Olivia Gray, as she is known, waggles her tail feathers for photographs as Democrats make their way into an upstairs bar at Solly’s just across town. Olivia Gray the duck. (Rob Crilly/ Washington Examiner) This party is hosted by Oye Owolewa, the Democratic nominee for an at-large seat on the D.C. Council, and Olivia. Or rather, Pro-Animal DC, which is pushing ballot initiative 86 to ban foie gras in the district. Hence the celebrity duck on the sidewalk.Volunteers are crammed into the sweaty bar as someone on stage offers a rousing liberal chorus:“Oh yes we can,“Make the city that we live in,“A place for everyone,“Oh yes we can.”It has just gone 8 p.m., too early for results. This is more like vibe time. And the vibes are nervy.“We’re going to have to wait and see,” Paul Strauss, shadow senator for the district, tells Secrets. “We’ve got some close races around the country, so I don’t want to take anything for granted.”More people push up the stairs behind us. The crowd is young and expectant. This must be what it is like inside a firework on July 3.Secrets cannot hang around to hear the eruption for Owolewa when he wins, and for foie gras when it is banned.Our car takes us south towards Capitol Hill. People are still in line to vote at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library, visible through its plate-glass facade.Axios, the news website, has teamed up with prediction market Kalshi for its watch party. The panel discussions are over by the time Secrets arrives, thankfully.Guests nibble on cannonball-sized sliders and order old fashioneds at the open bar, while mingling on the terrace. It has stunning views of the U.S. Capitol, a reminder of what’s at stake.Not that many are paying attention. The vest-clad attendees look as if they are more interested in making money on their phones.The next stop is The Projection, a short hop back towards downtown. Chuck Todd, the former host of NBC’s Meet the Press, is broadcasting from a cubicle at the back of a bar.It is another Kalshi party, this time in conjunction with Decision Desk HQ. Prediction market numbers are flashed up on a big screen.But surely they can’t be right? Results are still only trickling in, but Kalshi already has Democrats with a 99% chance of taking the Senate.“I think I’m reading this right,” says a bemused attendee, who came to the party alone and is staring at the Kalshi data, “but I think this says the Democrats will win 55 seats.”It is 9:55 p.m. Other broadcasters have yet to decide whether this is a bit of a blue wave or a big blue wave — a “bluenami.”As we chat, political commentator Chris Cillizza takes the stage in front of us for an update. He starts to explain that it is beginning to look like a medium-to-large wave, “with the possibility of it being huge.” Political pundit Chris Cillizza and journalist Laura Trevelyan were providing an update to viewers at the Decision Desk HQ party when Kalshi called the South Carolina race for Annie Andrews, drawing gasps from the audience at Pubkey in Washington, DC. (Rob Crilly / Washington Examiner) Then, Kalshi asks him to hold its beer.Behind Cillizza, the giant screen suddenly flashes with a new race call: it says Annie Andrews will beat Darline Graham in the South Carolina Senate race.There are gasps around the room as the magnitude of this call hits home.“OK. This is huge,” says Cillizza.Kalshi has been calling it early all evening, it turns out. It has already called Texas for James Talarico, an hour and a half before the established gods of election night results at the Associated Press. It is sticking its neck out while the legacy prognosticators are humming and hawing.Note to self: Kalshi is also owning election night by providing open bars at its events.There is only one thing to do now: go see the mood back at the University Club.It’s a funeral. The line of Ubers outside the doors at 10:30 p.m. shows that the party is over. Plenty of people are heading home.Fredericks has lost his tie and looks like he has lost weight in the three hours since I’ve been gone.“It’s a repudiation of my movement,” he says,Others are clutching at straws or finding solace where they can.Lindsey Rowland, who heads the D.C. America First Club, explains that her hopes now lie back home in Ohio’s 6th District, where she believed Democrat Marcy Kaptur was about to be dumped out of office after 43 years.“I’m hoping that Derek Merrin wins,” she told Secrets. “I’m not sure what the polls look like now, but I’m happy that that my district will hopefully have some change.”Merrin did not win.You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, who you can reach at [email protected] with your comments, story tips, and suggestions. So what went wrong? Trump aides are putting around the idea that a slew of bad candidates was to blame. Take this as evidence from Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump adviser.“Tbh most Republican candidates this cycle were uninspiring, lazy, and thoroughly ineffective communicators,” he posted last night. “I’m not all that surprised by some of these outcomes.”Privately, however, Secrets was hearing from insiders dumping the blame at Trump’s feet.“A public execution, the mess with the press secretary, all the stuff with the reflecting pool,” said one close ally last night as the bad results rolled in. “It feels like people were voting to end the chaos.”Another former White House staffer said the message was clear: “Get the hell out of the Middle East.”Voters may not vote on foreign policy, but they sure do vote on gas prices, was the message.A decent night for pollsters Last night was a reminder that Donald Trump is the big problem for pollsters. When he is on the ballot, a lot of their models get thrown off by his hidden supporters. They have generally been better at forecasting midterm elections than they have presidential votes.That said, we left you with a cliffhanger in Michigan yesterday. The final two polls showed that Democratic candidate Abdul el Sayed was on course to win by 11 points (New York Times-Siena University) or by two points (Zogby Strategies).Both were something of an outlier, with most polls in the preceding week or so coming in somewhere between those two extremes.And that was how it went down. Results this morning show that el Sayed beat Mike Rogers by 7 points. That means he pretty much split those two extremes of 2 and 11 points, falling in line with the consensus.Not a bad night for pollsters after all the nerves heading up to election night and reports that their data were overestimating Democratic support.James Johnson, cofounder of J.L. Partners, said: “The real fear that had been gripping pollsters for the last month was that they were not picking up enough loyal Republicans who would come out and vote straight ticket GOP. In fact, we weren’t missing them — there just weren’t any to find.”Lunchtime reading Will Democrats misread their victory? As one Democrat told Secrets last night: “I hope we don’t think everything is fine and we just carry on because voters like us more than they like Trump.”“I blame the president”: Stunned Paxton voters fume at historic fumble: Our Ramsey Touchberry was at the Ken Paxton watch party last night. “Ugly” is probably the word.