Data From Special Elections Suggests Swing To Democrats In House Of Reps

Data journalist for the Economist G. Elliott Morris has tweeted that data from four recent special elections has significantly swung the needle towards the Democrats for control of the House of Representatives.

• Morris: "So, based on our not-yet-released election model, special elections so far this cycle are consistent with Democrats winning 51.3%* of the two-party vote for the House in Nov. That is almost exactly the threshold they need to keep their majority. Big increase after NY-19 and NY-23."
• See earlier bullet for more info on NY-19 special election: https://marketnews.com/special-elections-indicate-...
• Morris attached some caveats to the analysis: "(1) We don't have final totals in the AK-AL special yet, so that's not in our model. (2) There is time for the metric to change before election day, this is just where things are now. (3) The special election forecast is not perfect, MOE [margin of error] is a bit over +/- 2.3pts today."
• Special elections are often closely watched for signs that one party outperforms the baseline partisanship of the district. So far there have been four special elections since the politically consequential decision by Supreme Court to roll back Roe vs Wade, seen by Democrat strategists as a seismic event which could changethe midterm calculus, in all of these special elections the Democrat candidate has outperformed expectation.
• FiveThirtyEight: "...given how these two elections [NY-19, NY-23] are part of a larger pattern of good results for Democrats over the last two months, they suddenly look a lot more like signal than noise."
• While the GOP remains favourite to retake control of the lower chamber in November, it should be noted that much of the data which underpins that expectation is based upon a calculus which tends to downplay the significance of the SCOTUS decision.