Election Day is finally here, and the polls, early voting and general electoral dynamics are practically now all in agreement: You should expect a big “blue wave” in the midterm elections that is large enough to give Democrats the House, and might be large enough for them to flip the Senate. But how much faith should we put into that consensus?

Here’s a final look at our election forecasting model at FiftyPlusOne, MS NOW’s exclusive partner for polling data and election analysis, to prepare readers for the potential outcomes of the elections this year.

The House

Our final forecast gives Democrats a 99% chance of winning the House, with a median of 240 seats.

The forecast implies a national House vote margin for the Democrats of about nine percentage points, in line with our generic ballot average of D+8.7. This would be larger than the margin for either party in any House election since 2008. Though unlikely, if the polls understate Democrats modestly, they could approach the levels reached in the immediate aftermath of Watergate, when their vote margin lead was in the mid-teens.

Republicans would need the polls to be off by more than they were in 2016, 2020 or 2024 to change that.

Across those years, the polls overestimated Democrats on the House generic ballot by about 3.9 percentage points. Plugging that into our forecasting model, a poll miss that large still leaves Democrats with a projected 226 seats and an 82% chance of a majority. A miss the size of 2020’s — about 5 points — left them at 71%.

Aside from horse-race polls, we can gauge voter sentiment as well.

Verasight, a mixed-mode pollster that draws respondents from a mix of sources, including the internet and text messages, conducted a poll of 2,028 U.S. adults from Oct. 13-19 for my Substack newsletter, “Strength in Numbers.” It found that 58% of adults said it’s more important to elect a Congress that acts as a check on President Donald Trump, versus just 25% who want one that helps him pass his agenda. That’s up from 56% to 26% in September.

And Trump’s approval rating is at a near all-time low of 35.6%. The historical relationship between presidential approval and House election outcomes suggests a Democratic seat gain in the mid-30s. This is likely too optimistic because of redistricting, but Democrats only need to flip three seats to win the majority.

So from the perspective of this forecaster and pollster, the relevant factor is not just that the polls show voters say they’ll vote Democratic in large numbers, but that they point to the type of environment where Democrats should be expected to win big.

Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats

Our certainty about the House does not extend to the upper chamber of Congress, however. The polls in the Senate are much closer.

Democrats currently hold 47 seats. Because a 50-50 split is decided by the Republican Vice President JD Vance, Democrats need 51 to nominally take control. They may in fact need 52 to safeguard against one of their members, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., potentially becoming a Republican (or at least the possibility that Fetterman becomes a Joe Manchin-type Democrat, one who wields disproportionate influence thanks to his ability to stymie Democrats’ agenda).

Our final forecast gives Democrats a 77% chance of getting there, with a median of 52 seats. They have an 87% chance of reaching at least 50, but 50 isn’t enough.

The Senate will most likely be decided in seven close seats: six Republican-held seats and Michigan, the one Democratic-held seat Republicans have a solid chance of flipping. Drawing on our database of polls and averages in each race from FiftyPlusOne, Democrats lead the polling average in all seven of these seats:

Maine: Former state Sen. Troy Jackson leads incumbent Sen. Susan Collins by 5.1 points on average. A New York Times/Siena College poll completed Nov. 1 had Jackson up 51% to 45%.

Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed leads former Rep. Mike Rogers by 5.3 points. Siena had him up 53% to 42% on Nov. 1, but a Research Co. poll the same day had it 48% to 46%.

Texas: State Rep. James Talarico leads state Attorney General Ken Paxton by 3.8 points. Siena found Talarico ahead 50% to 43% on Nov. 1. A Trafalgar Group poll the same day had Paxton up 48.1% to 47.5%, the only recent poll with him in front.

Kansas: Adam Hamilton leads incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall by 3.4 points. Siena had it 49% to 44% on Nov. 1.

Ohio: Former Sen. Sherrod Brown leads incumbent Sen. Jon Husted by 2.8 points. Siena had Brown up 49% to 44% on Nov. 1, but ActiVote’s Oct. 31 poll had it 50.2% to 49.8%.

Alaska: Former Rep. Mary Peltola leads incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan by 1.8 points. Siena had Peltola up 48% to 46% on Oct. 30.

Iowa: In a particularly close contest, Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek leads Republican state Rep. Ashley Hinson by 0.3 points. Siena had Turek ahead 48% to 47% on Nov. 1, and co/efficient had Hinson up 48% to 46% on Oct. 28.

North Carolina, a Republican-held seat, is effectively off the board. Former Gov. Roy Cooper leads former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley by 10.3 points on average, and YouGov had him ahead 55% to 44% on Oct. 29.

FiftyPlusOne’s forecast gives Democrats better than even odds in all seven: Maine at 77%, Michigan 76%, Texas 64%, Alaska 63%, Ohio 62%, Kansas 57% and Iowa 53%. Democrats don’t need to win all seven. If North Carolina goes blue, they need to hold Michigan and win three of the other six, which is why they are favored in our forecast.

What if the polls are off?

It is understandable that many Democrats are anxious about the polls, and by proxy, our forecasts. Senate polls overstated Democrats on average across states by 3.2 points in 2016, 5.6 points in 2020 and 3.3 points in 2024.

Yet polls have also understated Democrats in recent elections. In 2022, Democrats outperformed their polls in key Senate races, including in Pennsylvania, where Fetterman beat Republican nominee Mehmet Oz by about 4 points more than the polls forecast. In 2018, the polling error in Senate races was practically zero. And as any pollster worth their salt will tell you, it’s a fool’s errand to try to predict the direction of polling error ahead of time.

This is why we have prepared an interactive data visualization that can show you, state by state, what would happen in the election if the polls are as wrong as they were on average in these two sets of years: presidential cycles and midterms. You can explore the scenarios yourself on our site.

The takeaway here is actually better for Democrats than you might expect. Even with a miss as big as the average in 2016, 2020 and 2024, Democrats would still pick up North Carolina, Texas and Kansas: Cooper would win North Carolina by 6.7 points, Talarico would win Texas by 1.1 points and Hamilton would win Kansas by 1.2 points. Add Michigan, where El-Sayed would hold on by 0.8 points, and Democrats would end up with 50 seats, a net gain of three from where they are now.

That isn’t enough for control, but other races would be close enough for an additional state-level polling error in the other direction to tilt the scales toward Democrats. In the high-error scenario, Republicans would win Maine by 1.7 points, Ohio by 0.9, Alaska by 5.2 and Iowa by 5.7. Both Maine and Ohio would be within one or two points, well inside the usual error of a state polling average. If either one goes the other way, Democrats would have 51 seats and control of the Senate.

So the Republican path is narrow. They need the polls to miss as badly as they did in 2016, 2020 and 2024, and then hold both Maine and Ohio on top of that.

Under this scenario, it would still be possible for Democrats to win. Democrats’ chances of a Senate majority would fall from 72% to 40%, assuming a 2024-style average polling miss.

But if, on the other hand, the polls are as accurate as they were in the past two midterm elections, Democrats would be favored to win 52 seats, flipping Maine, Texas, Kansas and Alaska from red to blue. Additionally, the races in Iowa, Ohio and South Carolina would all be within a point and could easily go either way. If the polls actually understate Democrats — the bull case for the party — they could win those seats plus Nebraska, where we count independent Dan Osborn as a Democrat for purposes of determining Senate control. It’s unclear whether Osborn would caucus with Democrats, but by defeating Pete Ricketts, he would definitely deprive Republicans of a member. That would give Democrats a total of 56 seats.

If the polls miss only as much as they did in 2018 and 2022, the Senate looks a lot like the one in our forecast. Democrats’ control odds barely moved in that scenario — 72% versus the published 77% — and they would have 52 seats, with Ohio and Iowa essentially tied.

What to watch

So as you’re watching results come in Tuesday, here’s what to pay attention to.

North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Virginia — all holding Senate races this year — close their polling places at or before 7:30 p.m. ET and count votes relatively quickly. Watch these states for the results to roughly match our polling averages. Since polls tend to be off by a similar amount across states, an error in these quick-counting contests could forebode errors elsewhere. If there is minimal error, expect Democrats to do well across the country.

If Democrats hold their leads in both Ohio and Maine, which will start releasing results around 8 p.m. ET, Republicans would need a polling miss bigger than any in recent years in the other states to hold onto their majority.

If Republicans win both, the question becomes whether Democrats can still reach 51 through Texas, Kansas and Michigan, three states where the polling averages put them ahead by 3 to 5 percentage points.

Those margins are thin enough that one bad night in any of them matters. But Republicans have to win nearly everything that’s close, and the polls have to be wrong in their favor to do it.

It is not a good position to be in when your sole win condition for the election hinges on all the pre-election data being wrong.

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