The Polls Still Do Not Show A GOP Bounce Back

Ever since we launched our election model in late June, it has moved entirely in one direction: toward Democrats. Pretty much every week, they’ve either gained ground in our forecast or held steady. 

This week has been more in the “held steady” category. In the Deluxe version of our model, Democrats’ chances of keeping the Senate are 71 percent, while their chances of holding the House are 31 percent. Neither number has meaningfully changed from a week ago.

As Democrats’ position has continually improved, I’ve tended to focus on optimistic scenarios for Democrats. Frankly, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to reiterate why Republicans could still have a pretty good midterm. They are, after all, reasonably clear favorites to flip the House, and a 30 percent chance to flip the Senate is nothing to sneeze at, either. That 30 percent chance is pretty much the same one our model gave to Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton on Election Day in 2016.