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FDL Model (10/25/26): House 229–206 Dem; Senate 51–49 GOP; Governorships 27–23 Dem

If the 2026 elections were held today, the Democratic Party would retake the U.S. House of Representatives, flip two U.S. Senate seats but fall short of a majority, and net three governorships. Those are the most recent results of the FDL Review election model. Since last week , Democrats have modestly improved their position in the House and across the state governorships. Republicans have gained in the Senate. A Democratic House: Our model indicates that Democrats would retake the House, 229–206, if the elections were held today. That’s up from 228–207 last week. And Democrats would win the House popular vote by 7.78 percentage points, an increase of 0.32 from last week. Purely by coincidence, our House forecast mirrors that of the famed Cook Political Report. Cook has 220 seats going Democrat, 198 going GOP, and 17 in the tossup column. Our model suggests that the tossup races would break 9–8 Democrat if the elections were held today. While our model doesn’t provide seat-by-seat Ho...
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FDL Model (10/18/26): House 228–207 Dem; Senate 50–50 GOP; Governorships Tied 25–25

If the 2026 elections were held today, the Democratic Party would retake the U.S. House of Representatives, flip three U.S. Senate seats but fall short of a majority, and net one governorship. That is according to the FDL Review election model, which accounts for public polling (adjusted for past accuracy), state fundamentals, and the relative enthusiasm of each party’s voters. Our model performed well in each of the three previous cycles that we ran it: 2020 , 2024 , and 2025 . A Divided U.S. Congress: Our model indicates that Democrats would fail to retake the Senate if the elections were held today. They’d sweep North Carolina and narrowly win Maine and Ohio. But Republicans would end up with 50 Senate seats and, thanks to Vice President J.D. Vance’s tiebreaking vote, a majority. Either party could conceivably end up with a comfortable 53-seat majority. Races in six states—Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas—would be decided by less than five points were the elections hel...
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FDL Analysis: Lessons from the 2025 Democratic Sweep

The clean Democratic sweep in the 2025 elections came as no surprise to FDL Review: On November 3, we correctly predicted that Democrats would win the races for New Jersey governor and for Virginia governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. But we underestimated Democrats’ performance by an average of 6.25 percentage points. This article assesses where we went right and wrong in our 2025 predictions, concluding with recommendations for how Republicans can fare better in 2026. New Jersey: Our model predicted that Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill would defeat Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli by 2.55 percentage points. Current results show that we were directionally correct but that we underestimated the magnitude of Sherrill’s win by 10.96 points—the single worst error in FDL modeling history. Two factors contributed to our Garden State blunder. First, the governor-elect massively outperformed pre-election polls. Bad polling is nothing new for New Jersey, which a recent W...
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FDL Prediction: Democrats Sweep 2025 New Jersey, Virginia Races (11/3/25)

Two Democratic-leaning states—New Jersey and Virginia—are holding statewide elections in 2025. The FDL Review election model predicts that Democrats will sweep these elections, retaining the governorship of New Jersey and flipping the governorship, lieutenant governorship, and attorney generalship of Virginia. The races for New Jersey governor and Virginia attorney general are, however, exceedingly close. Our model considers public polling (adjusted for past accuracy), state fundamentals, and voter enthusiasm for each candidate. New Jersey: Our model predicts that Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill will narrowly defeat Republican former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli in the Garden State’s gubernatorial race, winning by 2.55 percentage points. Boosting Sherrill’s chances of victory, New Jersey’s fundamentals favor Democrats. It is a solidly blue state where 38% of voters are Democrats and only 25% are Republicans. Indeed, it last elected a GOP governor in 2013 and hasn’t voted for ...
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Final Scorecard: FDL Model's 2024 Election Predictions Almost Perfect

The clean Republican sweep in the 2024 elections came as no surprise to FDL Review: On November 4 , we predicted that Republicans would win the House, Senate, and presidency, even though betting markets thought there was only a 36% chance of this happening. Now that the results are certified, here’s our final scorecard. Presidential Election: 96% Right We accurately called 48 of the 50 states in the presidential election, where President Donald Trump managed the best result for a Republican since George H. W. Bush in 1988. The only states we got wrong were Michigan and Nevada. Across the ten battleground states, our final projection was off by an average of 1.65 points and overestimated Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.66 point. We were vindicated in our prediction of a Trump victory in the national popular vote, which betting markets thought he had only a 26% chance of winning. He outdid our final estimate of a 0.73-point victory, winning the popular vote by  1.47 . Our sub-arg...
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Final FDL Prediction: Trump 291–247; GOP 52–48 in Senate, 225–210 in House (11/4/24)

The FDL Review election model predicts that former President Donald Trump will win reelection, that the GOP will retake the Senate, and that Republicans will retain their House majority. Trump is expected to win the Electoral College 291–247, taking the battleground states of Arizona (by 3.81 percentage points), Georgia (1.50), North Carolina (2.45), Pennsylvania (0.18), and Wisconsin (5.21). Additionally, our model predicts that Trump will win the national popular vote by 0.73 percentage point. Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, is expected to take Michigan (by 1.45 percentage points), Minnesota (4.28), Nevada (0.73), New Hampshire (2.85), and Virginia (5.18). Giving Harris a boost at the margins, her voters are a hair more excited than Trump’s   about participating in the election. And  recent polls indicate that the vice president has momentum, winning over “late deciders” by double digits. Our model also predicts that Republicans will flip the Senate, netting three...
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Trump Electoral College Advantage Buckles Despite His Popular Vote Lead Doubling; GOP Holds Steady in Senate, Expands House Lead: FDL Model (10/26/24)

If the 2024 elections were held today, the FDL Review model finds that Republicans would retake the Senate and presidency while holding the House of Representatives. This is unchanged from our findings last week. Over the past week, former President Donald Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College shrank from 44 votes to six. This is because Vice President Kamala Harris captured a 0.007-point advantage in Pennsylvania, which Trump led last week by 0.11. Hurting Trump at the margins, polling indicates that Harris’s supporters are marginally more enthusiastic and certain to vote than the former president’s. This could be the result of Trump’s lackluster ground-game operation. That said, Trump’s 272 votes are a safer bet than Harris’s 266. Our model indicates that he leads in all ‘his’ states by at least 1.46 percentage points, whereas two of Harris’s states—Pennsylvania and Michigan—are within a percentage point. Trump would win the national popular vote by 1.39 percentage points if t...
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