CNN Data Guru on Republicans’ Odds of Taking the Senate: ‘Not Great’

CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten explained why Republicans face an uphill climb in their bid to retake the United States Senate.

Anchor John Berman welcomed Enten on the air on Tuesday, noting, “Republicans need to flip just one seat in the 50-50 Senate to take control. How is that looking right now?”

“Not great,” Enten replied. “I’m just surprised as anybody else. Look, I broke it down that Democrats need to win essentially four of these six key races. And where are they right now? They are ahead in four of the six key races that they need to win if we pull the polling average up here, which you’ll essentially see is, they’re up in New Hampshire, they’re up in Arizona, they’re up in Pennsylvania, and Georgia – the 50th seat. They’re up by four points.”

Berman pointed to wayward polling ahead of the elections in 2016 and 2020, which indicated Democrats would perform markedly better than they ultimately did.

“As we know, Harry, polls undercounted some of the Republican support in 2020, and in 2016,” Berman said. “Not so much 2018. But what does the map look like and could that happen again?”

Enten replied that even if the polling errors were similar to 2020, Democrats would still prevail in the races they need to maintain control of the Senate.

“Let’s adjust the polling averages by the errors that we saw both in 2020 and 2016,” Enten said. “If we adjust the polling average to have a 2020-like polling error, Democrats are still ahead in the four seats they need to gain control. Yes, the race is a bit tighter, especially in Pennsylvania, where John Fetterman would be up just three points with a 2020-like polling error, but they would in fact have the votes.”

Enten added the same goes for 2016-like polling errors.

“It’s a tight race at this point, John, but even if we have polling errors like in 2020 or 2016, Democrats would in fact keep control of the United States Senate,” Enten stated.

Watch above via CNN.

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