Democrats win the House and the Senate, our forecast says
With counts in from Georgia to Michigan, our election-night forecast gives the Democrats more than a 99.9% chance of controlling both chambers of Congress: about 56 Senate seats and about 280 in the House.
Polling Forecast
2 min read
data as of 4 November Written in house from our poll data and our forecast.
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We are calling it: the Democrats will win control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Our night forecast, which moves with every count from the states' own results sites, now gives the Democrats more than a 99.9% chance in both chambers. Our best estimate is about 56 Democratic senators, five more than the 51 they need (Vice-President JD Vance breaks a 50-50 tie), and about 280 House seats, against the 218 needed for a majority.
This is our model's call, made at about 8:40 pm Eastern time. It is not an official result, and the networks had not called either chamber when we published.
Why we are confident
Before the polls closed we gave the Democrats an 83% chance of the Senate and 90% of the House. Tonight's counts have been better for them than the polls almost everywhere we can compare like with like: early votes against the same county's early votes in 2024, Election Day votes against Election Day votes. Across 61 pieces of evidence, the Democrats are running about 4 points ahead of the polls nationally, with an uncertainty of about 2 points either way.
- Georgia: with nearly half the vote counted, Keisha Lance Bottoms (governor) and Jon Ossoff (Senate) are running 9 to 12 points ahead of what we expected.
- North Carolina: Roy Cooper's Senate race is a firm call for us. He leads Michael Whatley by 34 points with 61% counted, and is about 12 points ahead of our forecast on the like-for-like comparison.
- Texas: in the counties we have looked at, James Talarico is running about 20 points ahead of Donald Trump's 2024 margin, even in rural strongholds, and well ahead of our forecast in the suburbs.
- Florida: closer to our forecast. The swing from 2024 is real but was mostly already in our numbers, and the House seats there are a mixed picture.
The Senate arithmetic
The Democrats began the night with 47 seats and needed to gain four. North Carolina is a firm call on our count. Our model makes Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Troy Jackson (Maine), Adam Hamilton (Kansas), Josh Turek (Iowa) and James Talarico (Texas) favourites, each with a chance of about 88% or more. The Democrats need only three of those five.
The House
In the House the margin for error is far wider. Our forecast this morning already had the Democrats on about 245 seats. Tonight's counts push that to about 280, with seats changing hands from Florida to Ohio, Michigan and Arizona.
What could still go wrong
Many races are still being counted, and some of our speculative race calls will be wrong: they rest on a reading of the national picture, not on a finished count. Early counts are skewed by the order states count their votes in, and the late Election Day vote leans Republican. All of that is in our model, and none of it comes close to changing the outcome in either chamber.
Follow every race as it is counted on Election night, live, and read our running commentary on the live blog.
Polling Forecast reads every poll in ten countries, corrects for how pollsters have missed before, and turns them into seats. Our forecasts, the polls and our methods are free to explore.
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