Many of the individual race forecasts in the FiveThirtyEight Senate model, which launched on Wednesday, look pretty optimistic for Democrats. … But despite that, the model has Democrats as reasonably clear underdogs to take control of the Senate. Even though it’s more optimistic than the consensus about Democrats’ chances in […] Read more »
Surprisingly, the Senate Is Now in Play
I have argued repeatedly that while the House is up for grabs — and indeed likely to flip to the Democrats in November — the Senate is not in play. I now believe that it is, so I must revise and extend my remarks. Only about three weeks ago, I […] Read more »
Midterm Seat Loss Averages 37 for Unpopular Presidents
The president’s party almost always suffers a net loss of U.S. House seats in midterm elections. However, losses tend to be much steeper when the president is unpopular. In Gallup’s polling history, presidents with job approval ratings below 50% have seen their party lose 37 House seats, on average, in […] Read more »
Primary Season Was Full of Surprises. Here’s Why the Polls Missed Some of Them.
Ayanna Pressley’s blowout victory over a 10-term congressman last week was the latest example of a trend that has become abundantly clear: 2018 is the year of the progressive insurgent, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Andrew Gillum. But if you relied exclusively on polls, you may not have seen these results […] Read more »
State of The 2018 House Race
The Monmouth University Poll finds the race for control of the House of Representatives to be tight in a new analysis of polls conducted in eight competitive bellwether congressional districts over the summer. … These are key findings from 3,390 interviews conducted in CA48, PA01, PA17, NJ03, NJ11, OH12, VA10, […] Read more »
Democratic Senate hopes are alive, though precarious
… Democrats need a net gain of two seats. To get there, Democrats probably need one of the following scenarios to come true. Democrats likely need to win Republican held seats in Arizona and Nevada. Then they need to hold onto all 26 of their currently held seats, including in […] Read more »