538: GOP still slight favorite for Senate control

[Senate Minority Leader Lord Voldemort]

According to this dems are gonna win AK, NC, IA, MI for a 50 split. Then some races in La or KY or Ga or AR will give us 51 which it always been.

Actually it gives democrats an exact 50/50 chance of winning AK and NC. What that means is that those races are pure toss-ups - they have an exactly equal chance of going either way. If Democrats win both, they will hold a 51-49 majority, if they go 1-1 it will be a 50-50 tie (which is essentially a senate controlled by Angus King (I-ME)), and if they lose both it will be a 51-49 republican majority.

Furthermore, the democrats have not always had 51 seats - they did from 2011-2013, but they have 53 seats right now, they had 57 two congresses ago, they had 49 before that, they had 44 before that, it was 49 before that, etc. (Note that these numbers exclude independent senators caucusing with democrats)

The democrats have not always held the majority, either - Republicans held the senate majority as recently as January 2, 2007 (The new congress isn't inaugurated until January 3 of the year after the election year) .

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The forecast looks pretty valid, though I wouldn't place MT, KY, and GA as high on the republican chances as 538 does, and perhaps MS should have a slightly lower democratic chance and Oregon a slightly lower one as well. I currently have AR as Toss-Up/Tilt D (538 has it as Toss-Up/Tilt R). Other than that it looks pretty good.

Here's what I currently have as a whole (if it all comes out this way, there will be a 50-50 tie in the senate):

VA: Likely D
MN: Likely D
MI: Lean D
NH: Lean D
IA: Lean D
AK: Toss-Up/Tilt D
AR: Toss-Up/Tilt D
CO: Toss-Up/Tilt D
NC: Toss-Up/Tilt R
LA: Toss-Up/Tilt R
GA: Lean R
KY: Lean R
MT: Likely R
WV: Likely R
SD: Likely R

Everything else is safe for one side or the other. (as much as OR might be worthy of being moved out of Safe D, my rule is that once a race is rated safe, that's where it stays no matter what, as that's what a safe category should be for in my opinion - races that will go one way even in a wave election for the other side.)

That's all pretty much common knowledge here on Atlas, I think what he meant by "it has always been" was that his prediction for the composition of the senate will be 51-49 Dem (2 indies caucusing with Dems).