New here? Strength In Numbers is an independent, data-driven publication that analyzes U.S. politics and elections, often using original datasets we collect or fund ourselves. SIN is written primarily by me, G. Elliott Morris, the author of a book about polls and democracy and formerly a data journalist at The Economist and head of FiveThirtyEight at ABC News. I run my own polling company and also do forecasts for the website FiftyPlusOne.news, which, as of last month, is the exclusive polling and elections data analysis supplier for MS NOW (formerly MSNBC).
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At this point, it is statistically undeniable that Democrats are set up for a big election night. Almost every quantitative indicator suggests Democrats are going to win the House and are more likely than not — though a far way from certain — to win the Senate.
Accordingly, my forecasting model gives Democrats a roughly 8-in-10 chance of winning majorities in both chambers, thanks to huge gains in otherwise very red areas of the country. And the early vote in key swing states shows a Democratic turnout edge at least as big as 2018’s.
But polls miss, and a typical Senate poll error of about 3 points is enough to swing the Senate by several seats.
So the useful thing for me to do, while we all wait for the votes to be counted, is to give you some way to track how things are going this afternoon and evening. After discussing the final forecast, I discuss my foolproof method for beating your friends to the call.
When I was running FiveThirtyEight, we would call posts like these “curtain-raisers” — previews before the main attraction. So the idea is that you will read this post, and then head on over to the Strength In Numbers live blog for the main content of the day. Of course, that’ll really get going much later in the day, once we actually have data to analyze.
Please also join me for an election night livestream with the teams from The Downballot and FiftyPlusOne at 6:45 p.m. ET, right here on the Strength In Numbers website or via the Substack app. We know there are a lot of places you could be on election night, but we think our joint offering will be the best combination of entertainment and information that you can get. It will also be entirely free of commercials. There will be a lot of caffeine and leftover Halloween candy.
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What the final polls are showing
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