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Election 2020: can the Democrats win the Senate?
- Democrats are projected to have a potential opportunity to regain control of the Senate after five years, requiring a gain of four seats or three if Joe Biden wins the presidency.
- The 35 individual Senate races are expected to make outcomes more difficult to predict than the presidential election.
- If Biden wins the presidency, Mitch McConnell is anticipated to block most of Biden's nominees and legislative initiatives, mirroring his tactics during the Obama administration.
- A comprehensive forecasting model created over three months of non-stop work in July, August, and September previously indicated a 71% probability of a Democratic Senate victory as of October 6.
- Projections combining polling data with fundamental factors are expected to offer greater stability than polling-only approaches, similar to the performance of the 1992 election forecast by The Economist.
- Specific state expectations based on fundamentals before poll updates include Susan Collins being eight points ahead, Alabama likely switching to the Republican party, and Arizona, Colorado, and North Carolina having a good chance to flip.
- Forecast updates are expected to move incrementally in response to each new high-quality poll, requiring computer assistance to track the volume of candidates and data.
- Mail-in voting is projected to set a new record in November due to the pandemic, introducing complications that will likely challenge the accuracy of forecasts.
- The current model does not make explicit adjustments for the election occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Concerns exist that the pandemic could produce significant, unexpected, and unmodelable effects on the election before sufficient evidence allows for predictive adjustments.