Democrats maintain a strong position to retake the U.S. House, but the party’s base of less-frequent voters and concerns about illegal immigration stand out as wild cards in the final days before Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll of likely voters in battleground congressional districts. […] Read more »
Where things stand less than a week out
We have great news for everyone. In just six days, the 2020 presidential campaign will begin! (No, we’re really not kidding.) But before then, we have the small matter of the 2018 midterm to settle. We’re still agonizing over our final picks in the closest House, Senate, and gubernatorial races. […] Read more »
How Republicans could hold the House
In 2018, will the story be about turnout? Probably not. The empirical fact is that turnout does not display a systematic bias in American national elections, despite the typically lower turnout rate of Democratic partisans and the greater effort by Democratic campaigns to get out the vote. Two more powerful […] Read more »
For Handicapping Midterm Races, Old Rules May No Longer Apply
Political handicapping is more than looking at polls and regurgitating who is ahead. Throughout an election cycle, there are signs political handicappers use to understand what is happening at a given moment and to project how races will play out in the weeks or months ahead. CONT. Stuart Rothenberg, Roll […] Read more »
Ten days from Election Day, Trump stands at the center of the storm
This is the time in an election cycle when people who do politics for a living are nervous. They look for evidence, favorable or unfavorable, they can trust. They weigh what polls tell them against what their instincts tell them, or against what they believe can still happen. It is […] Read more »
Democrats Have Numbers on Their Side in Battle for the House. Republicans Have the Map.
Dozens of House races remain extremely close in the closing days of the midterms, according to New York Times Upshot/Siena College polls, making it easy to envision a Democratic blowout or a district-by-district battle for control that lasts for weeks. The difference between the two outcomes will depend on whether […] Read more »