Senate Update: Races for the Senate and White House Are Moving in Near Lockstep
The senate races are so important this cycle, even if Hillary wins she faces an impossible task and we face 4-8 more years of pure obstructionism from the GOP if they hang on to the Senate.
Democrats are still slightly favored to take control of the Senate after November’s elections. They need to gain a net of four seats if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, or a net of five seats if she doesn’t. And the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus forecast gives them a 56 percent chance of doing so, while the polls-only model has them with a 54 percent chance of winning a majority.
Polls continue to show a tight race in states such as New Hampshire, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, three of the four most important seats in determining who wins control.1The fourth is Missouri. Not coincidentally, the contest between Clinton and Donald Trump in those three states is also close.
That relationship — between the Senate races and the Trump-Clinton matchup — didn’t seem to be a given this year. Split-ticket voting — when a voter chooses a Democrat for president and a Republican for the U.S. Senate, or vice-versa — has become far less common as the country has grown increasingly polarized, more closely linking the presidential election with down-ballot contests. But Trump is such an unusual nominee, it seemed possible more voters would separate him from down-ballot Republicans. For now, however, polarization appears to be winning out.
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