Six Days to Go

House rating changes; Senate, governor updates

Dear Readers: Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman, along with our Center for Politics colleague Carah Ong Whaley, will be hosting a Twitter Spaces at noon eastern on Thursday to discuss the looming midterm elections. You can tune in here; if you cannot make it, we will...

Notes on the State of Politics: Sept. 7, 2022

House rating changes; MA-GOV to Safe Democratic; next week’s primaries

Dear Readers: This is the latest edition of Notes on the State of Politics, which features short updates on elections and politics. -- The Editors Table 1: Crystal Ball House rating changes District Old Rating New Rating Mary Peltola (D, AK-AL) Safe Republican Toss-up MI-3 Open (Meijer, R) Toss-up Leans...

House Rating Changes: More Movement Toward Republicans

10 changes, all but 1 in favor of GOP

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- We are making 10 House rating changes, 9 of which benefit Republicans. -- Our overall best guess at the net change in the House -- a GOP gain somewhere in the 20s -- remains unchanged. -- We don’t see a huge impact, so far,...

Notes on the State of Politics: Jan. 26, 2022

Warning signs in South TX for Democrats, Iowa looking redder, two new state maps

Dear Readers: On Thursday, Jan. 27 from 2-3 p.m., the University of Virginia Center for Politics and the UVA Office of Global Affairs will host a virtual Ambassador Series event with His Excellency Juan Carlos Pinzón, Ambassador of Colombia to the United States. You can watch here. This is the...

The Electoral College: Expanding the Map

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- We don’t really think President Trump can win New Mexico, where he campaigned earlier this week. But he’s wise to try to expand the map. -- While presidents who lose reelection historically don’t win states they didn’t carry in their earlier victories, presidents who...

Notes on the State of Politics

Debate effects can fade; Trump may be running behind his approval; the NC-9 special; a Magnolia runoff?

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- The polling effects from the first debate largely wore off by the time the second round started. -- In 2016, President Trump won some voters who otherwise did not like him, but there are some signs he isn’t benefiting from such a dynamic at...

Final picks for 2018

Democrats in House; Republicans in Senate; Democrats big in gubernatorial races; be on guard for upsets

  KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- Sorry, friends, but you are going to have to actually read this one. -- Our full list of ratings changes is available here. Our best guesses for Tuesday The 2018 midterm has long been a study in contradictory signs. There is, for Republicans,...

The Drive for 25: An updated seat-by-seat analysis of the House

Democrats closing in on majority but it's not a sure thing

  KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- A race-by-race analysis of Democratic House targets shows the party is close to winning the majority, but they do not have it put away, in our judgment, with Election Day less than three weeks away. -- Barring a big, positive late change in...

Midterm Update: North Dakota goes to Leans Republican, giving the Republicans a clearer edge in the Senate

Dark red states going different directions in gubernatorial contests

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- The North Dakota Senate race moves from Toss-up to Leans Republican, reinforcing what we’ve long described as a GOP edge in the race for the Senate. -- The Democrats do have a path to the majority, but that path almost certainly involves winning at...

Ratings Changes: House, Senate, and Governor

Democrats inching closer to magic number in House, poised to net several governorships; Senate battle murky as Kavanaugh effect uncertain

  Editor’s Note: Before we begin this week, we just wanted to acknowledge our friend Geoffrey Skelley, our long-time Crystal Ball associate editor. Geoff started a new position this week with FiveThirtyEight. For nearly seven years, Geoffrey was an exceptionally valuable member of our team, and we will miss him...

The House Tilts Toward the Democrats

Big-picture factors help minority party, but battle far from over; 17 ratings changes in favor of Democrats

Editor’s Note: This is a special Tuesday edition of the Crystal Ball. We’ll be back to our regular Thursday schedule next week. KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- Democrats are now a little better than 50-50 to win the House. This is the first time this cycle we’ve gone beyond...

A half-dozen House ratings changes in favor of Democrats

And the fall of Joe Crowley in New York

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE -- Rep. Joe Crowley’s (D, NY-14) primary loss represents a changing of the guard in a diverse district. It does not necessarily suggest we should expect a flood of additional Democratic primary losers. As it stands, only three incumbent House members have lost renomination so...

THE COMEY EFFECT

FBI director throws a curveball into the presidential race with a week to go; Clinton slips in ratings but retains clear edge

The purest version of the “October surprise” is a political bombshell that no one sees coming. In the closing days of the craziest campaign in modern history, we have just been witnesses to an October surprise so pure it would qualify for an Ivory Soap commercial (“99 and 44/100 percent...

THE TRUMP SURGE

Or is it a Clinton Fallback?

And then, everything changed. Well, not everything, but enough to generate the first major revision in our electoral map, and all of it is in Donald Trump’s direction for now. Let us make our view perfectly clear: We still believe that Hillary Clinton is more likely than Trump to win...