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WASHINGTON — A top election forecaster says the House and Senate are about to do something that’s happened only twice in the last 70 years — both flip in a single election.
Famed polling expert Nate Silver, who is giving Democrats a whopping 94% chance of reclaiming the House, also predicts there is a 75% chance they will retake the Senate.
Silver, who is known for his near-perfect predictions of the 2008 and 2012 presidential cycles as well as his huge miss for President Trump’s win in 2016, claims that his peers are being “boring and risk-averse” by hedging the Dems’ chances of nabbing the Senate.
“Democrats’ situation is more robust than if you just treat all of the states in the middle of the table as pure toss-ups,” the data nerd explained in his Silver Bulletin.
“[Alaska’s Mary] Peltola, [Texas’ James] Talarico and [Ohio’s] Sherrod Brown, in particular, have led in the vast majority of polls, and those pickups plus North Carolina would suffice to give Democrats a 51-49 winning map.”
It should be noted that Silver is one of the most bullish of the polling analysts on Democrats’ chances in November.
To retake the upper chamber, the Dems will need to flip four Senate seats currently controlled by the GOP.
Still, many of the top forecasts are expecting Democrats to retake the Senate, which is critical for filling cabinet posts, judiciary vacancies and more.
Adding to the stakes of the Senate is speculation that Republican appointed Justices Samuel Alito, 76, and Clarence Thomas, 78, may want to retire over the next two years.
Should that happen, Democrats could reshape the ideological balance on the high court.
There have only been two instances over the past 70 years when both the House and the Senate flipped simultaneously in the same election cycle: the 1994 and 2006 elections.
Notably, Democrats had a toehold on the House for four decades, from 1955 until early 1995, while the Senate flipped back and forth during that time.
One of the reasons Democrats have long been favored to win control of the House this cycle is that the GOP’s majority is ultra-slim, and the party in control of the White House has lost seats in all but two midterm cycles since 1939.
So, losing just a few seats will hand control over to the Democrats.
Silver’s claim to fame was his breakthrough predictions in 2008 and 2012.
But in 2016, his FiveThirtyEight polling outfit, which he has since left, gave Hillary Clinton just under a 70% chance of winning. In 2024, he cautiously projected Trump would win.
The bleak outlook for Republicans by prognosticators is a remarkable turnaround from earlier this year when they were favored to hold the Senate due to a friendly map.
Now Prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket both peg Democrats with a 65% chance of winning the Senate.
DecisionDeskHQ gives Democrats a 56% probability of achieving that feat and projects they will win 51 seats, according to its latest analysis.
In many of those forecasts, Republicans had generally been favored to hold onto the Senate in those prediction markets until around early last month.
So-called election “Nostradomus” Allan Lichtman, who once predicted several presidential elections correctly before falling flat in 2024, forecasted Dems will get 52 Senate seats, compared to the GOP’s 44.
Lichtman, whose down-ballot prediction track record is far less acclaimed than his now-blemished presidential one, left four seats as tossups: Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and South Carolina.
Perhaps the most closely eyed election handicapper in the political beltway, the Cook Political Report, which is known for being cautious in its ratings, favors Democrats to win 47 Senate seats and Republicans to get 46, with seven deemed tossups.
Critically, all seven toss-up states except for Michigan are currently held by Republicans.
Democrats are polling ahead of the GOP in all of those toss-up races except for Iowa and Kansas in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling.
“All these races that are showing we’ve got a 2- or 3-point lead or it’s a toss-up, we could end up losing all of them by 2 points,” former President Barack Obama acknowledged, according to the Washington Post. “It’s within the margin of error.”
Other handicappers have similar ratings. Inside Elections favors Dems for 48 seats, compared to 48 for the GOP and four tossups. Meanwhile, Sabato’s Crystal Ball predicts Democrats will get at least 49 seats and Republicans 46, with five tossups.
The midterm elections will take place on Nov. 3 and set the stage for the political environment President Trump will face during his final two years in office.