The potential sleeper races of 2022

The 2022 election is looking pretty unpredictable in its own right, with Democrats recovering somewhat despite an environment that would seem to favor — and historically does favor — the GOP. And we also have to build into our expectations the increasing number of polling misses in recent years.

But if we find ourselves talking about some sleepers and surprises come Nov. 8, where might they be? Below are some races to keep at least one eye on.

Utah Senate

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) was not on anyone’s most-endangered list heading into this cycle, but Democrats, through some deft maneuvering, appear to have gotten at least a chance of unseating him.

The party opted not to field a nominee and instead lined up behind conservative and independent former presidential candidate Evan McMullin — a formula that has previously demonstrated some success in red states.

It’s not outside the realm of possibility that it could pay off. Every reputable, nonpartisan poll show this is a single-digit race; some even have McMullin up by a slight margin. Republicans are certainly paying attention.

“This race here in Utah — Mike Lee unfortunately, has a real race,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) recently told Fox News’s Sean Hannity during a campaign stop for his ally.

Lee’s camp, meanwhile, has been pleading for Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) support — and Lee’s done so publicly — but that support hasn’t been forthcoming. (Romney has cited his relationship with both Lee and the challenger.)

It’s possible to overestimate McMullin’s chances. Polls in 2016 suggested his third-party presidential win might help deprive Trump of a win in Utah, but Trump ultimately won the state by 18 points. (McMullin took 21.5 percent of the vote there.) But McMullin isn’t just a spoiler candidate this time.

As for the practical impact of a possible upset? McMullin reiterated this weekend that he wouldn’t caucus with Republicans or Democrats. (On the one hand, that stance could help him win over some conservative Lee skeptics who don’t want another Democratic vote in the Senate; on the other, it would deprive McMullin of power once he won.) But if he wins and the GOP has 50 seats and the Democrats 49, there will surely be plenty of lobbying for his vote to organize the Senate and determine the majority.

Oregon governor

This is the other sleeper race that has suddenly gotten national attention — also thanks, in part, to a third-party candidate.

President Biden traveled to this blue state over the weekend in hopes of shoring up Democratic nominee Tina Kotek as she faces a spirited race with Republican Christine Drazan. Just about every recent poll shows this is a margin-of-error race, with Drazan holding a statistically insignificant lead.

Complicating matters for Kotek is the presence of a moderate former Democrat who is now running as an independent, Betsy Johnson. Johnson polls in the double-digits and is sometimes competitive with the two major-party candidates.

Democrats have lost before when their votes were split like this (see: Maine last decade). And if Republicans can pull it out, it would be the first time Oregon has elected a GOP governor since 1982.

Colorado and Washington Senate

Even as Democrats seem to have an outside shot of defeating an incumbent Republican in Utah, they hold out hope of staving off two other upsets in the west: the Senate races in Colorado and Washington.

The incumbent Democrats in both — Michael F. Bennet and Patty Murray, respectively — lead in the polls, but often by single-digit margins (and it’s even closer when the pollster is a Republican-oriented one).

Bennet’s GOP opponent Joe O’Dea has won lots of plaudits from his party, while tacking hard to the middle and even saying he supports abortion rights. Bennet won reelection in 2016 but was held below 50 percent, despite the states drift to the left. (One Republican who doesn’t seem impressed is Trump, who on Monday labeled O’Dea “stupid” after O’Dea said he wouldn’t campaign for Trump in 2024.)

Murray’s race would be an even more surprising upset, but it’s one Republicans are particularly keen on. George Will wrote late last week that GOP candidate Tiffany Smiley could be the big 2022 “shocker” like the ones mentioned at the top of this post, particularly if Democrats have overplayed their hand by focusing so much on abortion rights.

Iowa Senate

Iowa’s preeminent pollster, Selzer and Co., turned more than a few heads this weekend by releasing a poll showing Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) with just a three-point lead, 46 percent to 43 percent, over Democrat Mike Franken.

We’re a little skeptical Grassley is in that much trouble. But as The Post’s Philip Bump notes, there are reasons to believe that his political stock isn’t what it once was, and that his age — he turned 89 years old last month — could be an issue.

The question is whether that’s enough to turn what has been an increasingly red state competitive again. Republicans have pretty consistently won by the high-single digits in Iowa in recent years, and Franken isn’t exactly viewed as a prized Democratic recruit. (A Politico Magazine piece recently intoned: “D-lister might be a good term for Franken.”)

Without some of the unusual dynamics above, and with the 2022 environment looking either neutral or slightly in the GOP’s favor, picking off Iowa in a federal race would be pretty shocking. But this isn’t the only red-trending swing state that looks more dicey for the GOP than it probably should be; so does Ohio.

Oklahoma governor

The paucity of polling here makes this one difficult to call. Multiple recent surveys show Democrat Joy Hofmeister running competitively with Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), but polling in this state has proven difficult in recent years.

What we do know is that this also carries some unusual dynamics.

Hofmeister won election as state schools superintendent in 2014 and 2018 as a Republican, but she switched parties last year in advance of a challenge to Stitt. She clashed with Stitt on the state’s coronavirus response but says her policies haven’t changed. She still calls herself “pro-life,” for instance, but has criticized Stitt for taking the state party to the right and aligning with Trump.

Oklahoma’s two Senate races this year have also polled a little tighter than some might expect in such a red state — especially the open-seat race featuring one of the surprise 2018 Democratic winners noted at the top, former congresswoman Kendra Horn (D-Okla.). But the governor’s race would seem to be significantly more winnable for Democrats because of these dynamics and it being a nonfederal race — if it is, in fact, winnable.