While there are 435 House races, 35 Senate races and 36 governors’ races on Election Day 2022, some of the races are worth watching more closely than others. New Hampshire, New York, Georgia and Florida have particular significance on both the state and national playing fields. Straight Arrow News contributor Newt Gingrich is predicting a big night for his Republican party.

When you watch election night, there’s some things you can look for to see like how big the tsunami for Republicans is.

What happens in New Hampshire — they vote early — that result will come quickly. If Bolduc, who went into the Army as a private, and came out as a brigadier general, if he ends up beating Maggie Hassan, the Democratic senator, that’ll be an early signal that it’s going to be a very, very big Republican night. A few weeks ago Bolduc was probably 10, or 12, or 15 points behind, but the price of heating oil is skyrocketing, people in New Hampshire are filling up their tanks for the winter, they realize now how much they’re being hit by the cost of living. Hassan was always a fairly weak incumbent Senator — she never had very good numbers — and now all of a sudden, that’s a real race. That’s one of the earliest ones to look for.

A really long shot that’s developing to everybody’s surprise is Chuck Schumer. The Democratic Majority Leader has always won by a very big margin. Suddenly, he’s down slightly below 50%. The Republican is not known at all, he’s above 40%. That race I don’t think Schumer can lose but it’s going to be one of those races you have to watch.

And in the governor’s race in New York, if Lee Zelden wins, that will be a signal of a really big Republican night, because New York is one of the toughest states in the country for Republicans to win statewide. You have to come out of New York City with about 35% of the vote in order to be able to win statewide and historically, New York City has been very, very Democratic.

When you come further south — I’m sticking with the eastern time zone because that’s what I’ll give you the earliest signals — North Carolina looks now like the Republicans will keep that seat. It’s always a tough race. This one may actually be a little wider margin than people would have expected back in January. And it’s a place where the issue of crime has played a big role because the Democrat has turned out to have said anti-police things and pro-criminal things. And it’s really hurt her campaign.

Just south of there, one of the biggest races of the year is Senator Warnock against Herschel Walker. I think the odds are very high that Walker is going to win. And again, that’ll be a signal. If Warnock caught hangs on, it’s not going to be as big a Republican year as people think. If Warnock gets beat, it’s going to be a sign that we’re faced with a really big shift across the whole country.

So those are some examples.

Finally, I have to say, the size of the margin for Governor DeSantis is a big deal. He is probably going to win by more than 10 percentage points, maybe the biggest margin since Jeb Bush’s re-election. He may become the first Republican to carry Dade County, which is Miami, biggest county in the state, historically very Democratic. If that happens, and if he runs really well with the Latino vote, and it looks like he will, that gives him a pretty good base if he decides that he wants to run for president, and means that Trump will face a pretty serious contender if DeSantis decides to go for it.

So those are some ideas for how you can start the evening and have a pretty good sense by the end of the evening about what’s going to be happening.