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Yeah Rick, this has been a very strange week. The Democrats increased their chances of retaining the house while the Republican increased their chances of regaining the senate. A split like that doesn’t happen very often. Let’s forget my odds, let’s go with Nate Silver’s 538.
The Democrats increased their chance of retaining the house from 28% on 21 Sep to 31% on 30 Sep. However, the Democrats chance of retaining the senate per Nate’s 538 decreased from 71% on 21 Sep to 68% on 30 Sep.
Why? The House I covered earlier. 5 Democratic tossup seats changed to 5 lean Democratic seats plus one lean Republican seat went into the tossup column. Easy enough to understand. Keep in mind, all those six seats that changed categories this last week are still very much in the at risk, flappable columns. It isn’t like any seats moved out of the at risk, switchable category, they’re all still in this category. The senate, the difference is Wisconsin which flipped from a Democratic gain to a Republican hold. A drop for the Democrats from a 52-48 advantage in the senate down to a 51-49 advantage.
Then if you look at RCP generic congressional ballot, the Democrats had a 1.3-point lead on 21 Sep, now on 30 Sep, they trail by 0.9 points.
If we look at Nate Silver’s generic congressional ballot, the Democrats had a 1.4-point lead on 21 Sep, upped their lead to 1.9 on 24 Sep before falling back to a 1.3 point lead today or 20 Sep.
Does all of this mean we have a disconnect with the odds for Republicans in the senate rising slightly while the odds in the house rising slightly for the Democrats? I think not. We have 435 different elections in the house. The national generic congressional ballot treats the 435 separate elections as one. Wisconsin switching to a Republican hold is but one state. Each state has its own dynamics as to senate and governor races. Also, the momentum that shifted from Republicans to Democrats the first week of August thanks to Trump, seems to be shifting back to the Republicans if this article is correct.
Most important, we all know how Republicans and Democrats will vote. The unknown fact is we still have 20% of independents still in the undecided column. No one know how this 20% will come down on election day.
It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.
