A third PPP read of NC-7 lands where the others did, with Rouzer at 45

A Public Policy Polling survey of 517 registered voters in North Carolina's 7th District, fielded August 19-20, put Republican incumbent David Rouzer at 45 percent and Democrat Kim Hardy at 39 percent, with 3 percent for other candidates. That is the same six-point gap this site reported from two earlier PPP reads of the district.

The new number did not move our forecast much, and what movement there is runs toward Rouzer. Our model gives Hardy a 20 in 100 chance of winning the seat and Rouzer an 80 percent chance. The previous run, at 4:03 PM ET on August 31, had Hardy at 22 percent. Our mean margin is now R+8.2, against R+7.7 before. The model's 5th-to-95th percentile range spans R+24.3 to D+7.9, so outcomes on both sides of a comfortable Republican win remain inside it.

The wider spread between the poll and our mean margin reflects the national and state-level inputs the model carries alongside district polling. Our generic-ballot average stands at D+6.5, drawn from 28 polls over the past 45 days.

Nationally, our model gives Democrats a 93 percent chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for House control, with a mean of 240.1 Democratic seats, and Republicans a 6 percent chance. One caveat is ours to own: the simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and by district, but it has no term linking demographically similar districts across regions. Without that cluster data, our House control number is marginally firmer than a fuller model would make it.