FLASHING RED: GOP Makes Major Gains in Top Polling Analysts’ Projections For Midterms

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One week from the midterm elections and two major political forecasters flashed bright red warning signs for Democrats on Tuesday.

The Cook Political Report shifted 10 more House seats won by President Joe Biden toward the GOP, while Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight flipped its projection for control of the U.S. Senate to favor Republicans for the first time since July.

Cook Political Report’s Senior Editor David Wasserman wrote of the changes, “If you’re looking for House upsets, the best places to watch might be blue states where there’s no competitive statewide races driving turnout, Democratic governors are underperforming and GOP candidates have been able to seize on high crime and inflation.”

While 6 of the 10 House race shifts left the seats in “Lean D” territory or better, 4 of the shifts moved the race to either “Toss Up” or “Lean R.”

Rep. Katie Porter’s seat, CA-47 moved from “Lean D to Toss Up.” Cook Political Report writes of the change:

Porter, a national progressive superstar, has raised an astounding $21.6 million this cycle and is not-so-secretly an aspiring successor to Sen. Dianne Feinstein. But she’s at genuine risk back home: both parties’ polls show her in a dead heat against GOP former Assemblyman Scott Baugh

The other two seats that shifted from “Lean D to Toss Up” were NY-3 and NY-4, in which both GOP candidates are benefiting from Republican “gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin’s momentum” and the Cook Report notes that in NY-3 on Long Island that momentum “might sweep [George] Santos into this Biden +8 seat anyway.”

The real surprise in the latest report is OR-05, which moved from “Toss Up to Lean R” and exemplifies the Democrat’s struggles in the reliable blue state:

Had Blue Dog Rep. Kurt Schrader survived his primary, Democrats might have a better chance to hold this Biden +9 seat.

Silver explained the impact of FiveThirtyEight’s shifting Senate forecast on Twitter, writing, “It’s all been within the range of 50/50, and 51/49 one way fundamentally isn’t much different than 51/49 the other way, but still the first GOP lead by any margin in our Senate forecast since July.”

So, while FiveThirtyEight has declared the race for control of the U.S. Senate a “dead heat” for well over a week now, the fact that the GOP now holds an official edge illustrates their continued momentum ahead of election day.

Silver wrote two weeks ago, however, that with four races still so close its anyone’s game. “But let’s get real. If a friend asked me to characterize the Senate race, I’d say “it’s pretty fucking close,” and emphasize that neither party has much of an advantage,” he wrote.