Abstract: We forecast party control of the US House of Representatives after the 2018 midterm election. First, we model the expected national vote relying on available generic Congressional polls and the party of the president. Second, we model the district vote based primarily on results from 2016 and the national swing. To produce our forecast, we incorporate the uncertainty in the predictions using 3,000 simulations of the national vote and district outcomes. Based on our analysis, the Democrats are projected to win a solid plurality of the national vote, above 53% of the two-party share, and gain control of the House with a narrow 7-seat majority. Our simulations yield considerable variation, however, with the Republicans winning the majority of seats 46% of the time but with the distinct possibility of a big Democratic wave. CONT. – pdf
Joseph Bafumi (Dartmouth), Robert S. Erikson (Columbia) & Christopher Wlezien (U. of Texas at Austin )