With Vice President Harris replacing President Biden as the top presidential candidate, the races for the White House and Congress have shifted to the Democrats’ advantage, but all three races are expected to be close, according to the latest Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ)/The Hill election forecast analysis.
Harris now has a 55% chance of defeating former President Trump and winning the White House, up significantly from Biden’s 44% chance of winning when he dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris on July 21.
With Harris as their standard-bearer, the Democrats have a better chance of winning both the House and the Senate, despite being behind in both chambers.
Republicans remain the favorites to retake the Senate majority, but a DDHQ/The Hill analysis puts their chances of doing so at 67 percent compared with a 78 percent chance if Biden were to withdraw.
The House of Representatives races are expected to be closer, with Republicans having a 56% chance of retaining their majority, down slightly from 61% when Biden was the Democratic standard-bearer.
After a tumultuous and historic eight weeks in politics that included Biden’s disastrous debate, an assassination attempt on Trump, Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Harris, and both parties’ political conventions, here’s a closer look at the new analysis.
The White House
Harris now has a 55% chance of winning the White House and becoming the first female president, up from the 44% the model predicted when Biden withdrew from the race on July 21.
Still, the race remains competitive.
“Neither side can go to sleep tonight thinking they have the lead or advantage,” said Scott Tranter, director of data science at DDHQ.
Harris has seen a surge in support both nationally and in key battleground states over the past month, as Democrats have renewed enthusiasm for her slate. When she first entered the race, she was trailing by 2 points in The Hill/DDHQ’s national average, but now she’s leading by nearly 4 points.
Harris gained support in each of the seven states most likely to decide the election, but changes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were the main drivers of her improved prospects.
Those states were Biden’s best path to victory, but two of them were likely to go to Trump, with Biden holding a slim lead in Michigan. Harris is currently also slightly ahead in Pennsylvania, with a 53% chance of winning the state’s 19 electoral votes, and is also favored more in Michigan and Wisconsin, with a 67% and 58% chance of winning, respectively.
Biden was trailing by a few points in each of those states, and the gap was widening as calls for him to drop out of the race grew.
Ms Harris has also closed the gap in Sun Belt states that had seemed increasingly out of reach for Mr Biden: She’s trailing Mr Trump by about 3 percentage points in Georgia and about 1 percentage point in Nevada, but the two are neck and neck in Arizona.
Overall, he 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 this is subject to change.
“We’ve seen these odds move by 10 points before, and we’re sure we’ll see 10 to 15 point moves in the future,” Tranter said.
He said the model is up to date and includes the impact of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to drop his campaign and endorse Trump, though Kennedy’s approval rating had recently dropped significantly, from 15% to 5%, so his departure didn’t have much of an impact on the larger projections.
More polling is needed to see what impact he will have in states where he is on the ballot, such as Michigan and Nevada.
Senate
Republicans remain the favorites to retake the Senate majority thanks to favorable electoral maps, but their chances have slightly decreased: The party’s chances of winning the Senate have now dropped to 67%, down from 78% before the model was released, and it is projected to gain 51 seats.
“Empirically, we can say that the transition from Biden to Harris has increased the Democrats’ chances of winning the presidential election, and maybe to a lesser extent the Senate election,” Tranter said. “There’s no question that Republicans still have a commanding advantage.”
Republicans are eager to potentially win this year’s Senate elections, with Democrats defending about a half-dozen vulnerable seats while Republicans have only two at best — and those two seats are still favorable for Republicans.
But most of the key races in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada are either close or have slight Democrats’ advantages, which Democrats point to as the strength of incumbents.
And yet the reality of the map is that Republicans remain well-positioned despite the presence of strong Democratic candidates.
Republicans are almost certain to win seats in West Virginia and have an advantage in Montana, where Republicans are trying to oust Sen. Jon Tester (Democrat). Tester’s Republican opponent, Tim Sheehy, has a 73% chance of winning, which is still in “favorable” territory, but it’s clearly favorable for Republicans compared to other competitive Senate races.
Some polls show Sheehy leading the way compared to other state Republican candidates, and he is matching Tester in fundraising.
“Montana is fundamentally a Republican state,” Tranter said, “and even though Tester won in 2018 and has a history of winning Republican states, the polls are leaning toward Sheehy.”
The party’s chances of winning 55 seats, as some had hoped, appear to be fading.
house
Republicans now have a 56% chance of winning the House, down slightly from 61% before Biden withdrew — a welcome sign for Republicans who hold a slight lead, but it also gives Democrats some hope ahead of November.
Democrats need to win at least four seats to take control of the House in November, and given the enthusiasm for Harris and the importance of reproductive rights during this election cycle, they are hopeful they can achieve that goal.
Republicans, meanwhile, are confident they can maintain and even expand their majorities in Congress, buoyed by concerns about immigration, the economy and other issues.
Republicans currently control 220 seats in the House of Representatives, while Democrats hold 211. There are also four vacant seats. The House Republican Conference can only lose four members due to party discipline with the full House in attendance.
But control of the House of Representatives remains up in the air, with Tranter describing the House election as a “roller coaster.”
“A lot of these races are close,” Tranter said, adding, “And if four or five of those close races start to tilt Democrat or Republican, that could really change the odds of winning or losing. That’s how close the House is.”
“I can’t emphasize this enough: I wouldn’t be surprised if the odds flipped by 10 percentage points next month,” he added. “That’s how close it is.”
DDHQ currently projects that Republicans will win at least 215 seats, Democrats will win 210, and the rest will be close races, most of which lean Republican. The Cook Political Report similarly projects that 24 seats will be close races.
But Tranter said fundraising and polling could change that outlook in the final push to Election Day.
“You’ve got one good fundraising quarter, two good polling quarters, and there are just too many close races. Right now they’re all close with a slight advantage in favor of Republicans, but five or six of those races could very well swing in favor of Democrats next month,” Tranter said.
While prospects for the House races have improved for Democrats compared to when Biden was in the lead, the numbers aren’t at the same level as Harris’s projections for the presidential race, and Tranter said strong Republican fundraising and other metrics make the party less likely to win.
“Republicans are fundraising better than they did last quarter and have caught up with Democrats,” Tranter said. “That’s helping them out a little bit.”
