According to the latest polling data, Democrats are expected to win a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.
FiveThirtyEight, a website focused on polling predictions, has estimated that the democrats have an 82 percent chance of winning control of of the House. There’s an 80 per cent chance that democrats will gain 18 to 53 seats, with an average estimated gain of 35 seats.
The “Blue Wave” is a movement in which voters are expected to swing left. Several models indicate that the wave is real, and that we will start seeing many more Democratic members in both the house and senate. However, FiveThirtyEight predicts that republicans will keep control of the senate.
While FiveThirtyEight’s forecast has fluctuated slightly since August, the Democrats have held a considerable lead in predictions the entire time. The Democrats have not held a majority number of seats in the house of representatives since 2010.
FiveThirtyEight uses computer simulations to run the chances of different political outcomes based on polls and other indicators, according to its website.
It stresses that it only lists probabilistic chances, not guarantees, and election results have defied predictions before. Notably, FiveThirtyEight, Huffington Post, and other organisations predicted a strong chance of a presidential win for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Statistician Fred Wright at North Carolina State University has recently published what he considers a more accurate model for poll predictions by reverse-engineering previous wins.
NPRreports that suburban districts and college-educated women are leaning strongly towards Democrats after increasing frustration with republicans.
Donald Trump’s erratic tweeting and immigration policies have not helped voters’ sympathy for the republican party.
Several current republican members of the house are retiring, leaving seats that democrats are aiming to pick up.
Frustration with a party doesn't mean that liberal voters will actually show up to the polls, however, so we will have to see on November 6 whether or not the blue wave will be as strong as predicted.
