Within the Margin

The map below is my forecast from last Friday; I’ll be updating this Friday night or Saturday with races moving in both directions.

(click here for interactive map. Remember, that very gray shade of blue is the Tilt Dem seats. No toss-ups here. The idea here is to tell you where my instincts say things are going.)

That 222-213 margin represents a nine-seat shift to the GOP, if we assign the three current vacancies to their previous party. By historical midterm standards it would be a fairly tame result – but obviously enough to control the chamber. The generic ballot points to a larger shift – though caveats apply. Many of the higher-rated pollsters are showing a Republican lead in the generic, but a higher number of pollsters overall are still showing Democratic leads. We can find lots of encouraging data points for Dems in the early/mail vote so far…but we can pick holes in most of it, too. It’s a less predictable midterm than most but I’m going to try to nail some of these predictions in the final weeks. Back tomorrow with more.