The Replacement of Vice President Harris for President Biden at the top of the list has shifted the race for the White House and Congress toward the Democrats, although all three fights will be close, according to Updated analysis of the election forecast from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill.
Harris has a 55 percent chance of defeating former President Trump and winning the White House, a significant augment from Biden’s 44 percent odds when he dropped out of the race on July 21 and endorsed Harris.
The Democrats also have better chances, win the House of Representatives and in the Senate with Harris as their representative, although in both cases they are the outsiders.
Republicans remain the ponderous favorites to recapture the Senate majority, although DDHQ/The Hill analysis puts the chance at 67 percent, compared to 78 percent when Biden dropped out.
The race for the House seat is seen as much more thrilling, with Republicans having a 56 percent chance of retaining their majority here, down slightly from 61 percent when Biden was the Democratic nominee.
Here’s a closer look at the fresh analysis after eight tumultuous and historic weeks in politics that included a disastrous Biden debate, an assassination attempt on Trump, Biden’s decision to drop out and endorse Harris, and political conventions for both parties.
White House
Harris currently has a 55 percent chance of winning the White House, which would make her the first female president. That’s a huge jump from when the model ended with Biden when he dropped out on July 21, when the incumbent had a 44 percent chance.
Nevertheless, the race remains competitive.
“Neither campaign can go to sleep tonight thinking they are ahead or have an advantage,” said Scott Tranter, head of data science at DDHQ.
Harris has gained in the polls both nationally and in key swing states over the past month, building on fresh enthusiasm that the Democrats have for their election results. When she first entered the race, she was trailing by 2 points in The Hill/DDHQ national polling average, but now she is ahead by nearly 4 points.
She has improved in each of the seven states that are likely to determine the outcome of the election, but the change in the three Midwestern states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin is the main reason for Harris’ improved prospects.
Those states would have offered Biden’s best chance of winning, but Trump was the favorite for two of those states, and Biden was hardly the favorite in Michigan. Harris is now a similarly slight favorite in Pennsylvania, with a 53 percent chance of winning the 19 electoral votes; she also has a clearer advantage in Michigan and Wisconsin, with 67 and 58 percent chances of winning, respectively.
Biden was behind by several percentage points in each of those states, and that gap widened as calls for him to drop out of the race grew louder.
Harris has also narrowed the gap in Sun Belt states that had seemed increasingly out of reach for Biden. She is about three percentage points behind Trump in Georgia and one percentage point behind in Nevada, while the two are virtually tied in Arizona.
Overall, she has a 35 percent chance of winning Georgia, a 60 percent chance of winning Nevada, and a 49 percent chance of winning Arizona. But all of those numbers are subject to change.
“We’ve seen those probabilities shift 10 points once. We can certainly see them shift 10 to 15 points again,” Tranter said.
He said the model is also up to date and takes into account the impact of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to stop campaigning and endorse Trump. But because Kennedy’s support has dropped significantly recently, from 10 to 15 percent to 5 percent, his withdrawal did not have a major impact on the forecast’s huge numbers.
And more polling is needed to know what impact this might have in states like Michigan and Nevada, where he was on the ballot.
senate
Republicans remain the clear favorite to retake the Senate majority thanks to a favorable map spread, although their chances have dropped somewhat. The party now has a 67 percent chance of winning the Senate (it was 78 percent before the forecast model collapsed) and is expected to win 51 seats.
“We can say empirically that the switch from Biden to Harris has improved the Democrats’ chances at the presidential level, and maybe a little at the Senate level as well,” Tranter said. “The Republicans certainly still have a strong advantage.”
Republicans are very excited about their chances of winning the Senate this year, because Democrats are defending about half a dozen potentially vulnerable seats, while Republicans are likely defending two at most. And both seats are still favorable to Republicans.
But in the contested states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, most of the key races are either wide open or the Democrats have a slight advantage. They cite forceful incumbents as the reason for their current position.
Nevertheless, given the actual situation, the Republican Party owes its good positions to this, despite the forceful Democratic candidates.
Republicans are almost certain to win a seat in West Virginia and have an advantage in Montana, where they are trying to oust Sen. Jon Tester (D). Republican Tim Sheehy, who is running against Tester, has a 73 percent chance of winning. That’s still in the “close” range, but it favors Republicans more than other contested Senate races.
Some polls had Sheehy ahead, unlike Republican candidates in other states, and he was able to keep up with Tester in fundraising.
“Montana is basically a Republican state,” Tranter said. “Tester won in 2018, of course, so he’s won a Republican state before, but the polls are in Sheehy’s favor.”
The party’s chances of winning 55 seats, as some had hoped, appear to be slimmer.
House
Republicans currently have a 56 percent chance of winning the House, slightly lower than the 61 percent they had before Biden withdrew. It’s a welcome sign for Republicans, who maintain a slight lead, but it gives Democrats some hope ahead of November.
To win the House majority in November, Democrats need to win at least four seats. Given the enthusiasm for Harris and the centrality of the issue of reproductive rights in this legislative session, Democrats are confident they can accomplish that task.
Republicans, meanwhile, are confident they will maintain – and even expand – their majority in the chamber, a belief fueled by concerns about issues such as immigration and the economy.
The Republicans currently control 220 seats in the chamber, the Democrats 211. There are also four vacancies. The GOP conference in the House of Representatives can only afford to lose four members to party line votes if the chamber is full.
But control of the chamber is still up in the air. Tranter described the election campaign for the seat in the House of Representatives as a “roller coaster ride.”
“Many of these races are wide open,” Tranter said, adding, “And if four or five of these races are leaning toward the Democrats or Republicans, that can change the odds significantly. That’s how close it is in the House of Representatives.”
“I can’t stress this enough: I wouldn’t be surprised if the probability changes by 10 percentage points in the next month,” he added. “It’s that close.”
DDHQ currently projects Republicans to hold at least 215 seats and Democrats to win 210. The rest are in the “undecided” category, with most seats leaning toward the Republicans. Cook Political Report similarly projects 24 seats in the “undecided” category.
But Tranter said those prospects could still be changed by fundraising and polling in the final stretch to Election Day.
“There are so many neck-and-neck races, a good quarter with good fundraising, a couple of good polls. Right now they’re all on a knife edge, with Republicans slightly ahead, but five or six of those races could easily swing in Democrats’ favor in the next month,” Tranter said.
While the Democrats’ prospects in the House are better than under Biden, the numbers are not on par with Harris’s forecast for the presidential election. Tranter said Republicans have a better chance thanks to stronger fundraising and other metrics.
“The Republicans had a stronger quarter in fundraising than before, they caught up with the Democrats,” Tranter said, “and that kind of bolsters them a little bit.”
