Many of you have probably used the FiveThirtyEight House forecast tool, which offers a race-by-race forecast based on polling and other data. The Senate model is now available in the same tool. And for dedicated politics nerds, I find myself going to their spreadsheet of all of the polls realeased each day, found here.
Since the House model launched in early August, it’s mostly fluctuated between a 70-75% chance of Dems taking the House. Recent shifts in the environment and race have pushed that to today’s 83% prediction.
As we move further from Labor Day, the big question for me is whether these recent shifts are just temporary fluctuations based on the news cycles, or if we are seeing some true and lasting momentum building for our side. Either is possible — we could be in an election where our position is akin to Republicans in 2014, where we hold the lines and make modest gains, or this could be a 2010 scenario, where the race continues to shift past Labor Day and culminates in a national landslide.
As Nate Silver pointed out on their podcast this week, the state of the race seems to be right on that dividing line between a very good night for Dems, and a true Tsunami event. It could go either way, and theoretically if could shift rightward (although we are starting to lock certain aspects of the outcomes in).
Taking both chambers
Of note to me, the models are predicting that if the election were today, Dems have a 34% chance of winning both the House and Senate. You know what...the worst Senate map in history and ten seats up in deep red states? I’ll take a 1 in 3 shot of that...but let’s see if we can make that 1 in 2 over the coming weeks.
Beto!
The model gives Beto a 34% chance. It’s Texas...incumbent...voter suppression...I’m gong to take those odds too, and hope for a shift left in the coming weeks. But if we get to Election Day and it’s still 1 in 3...well, we are the party of hope and change, and those odds will be good enough for me to cross my fingers and say Beto’s name three times into a bowl of salt, or whatever the correct wive’s tale tradition is, lol.