Kansas poll shows a one-point race, and our Marshall odds firm up anyway

A Global Strategy Group survey of 800 likely voters in Kansas, fielded August 12-16 and sponsored by the People Over Politics Action Fund, put Adam Hamilton at 44 percent and Roger Marshall at 43 percent, with 5 percent for other candidates. That is a close race; the gap is one point, and the poll was paid for by a group with a stake in the outcome.

Our forecast now gives Hamilton a 6 in 100 chance against Marshall, the Republican incumbent, and Marshall a 94 percent chance. That is down from 14 percent for Hamilton in our previous run this morning at 8:32 AM ET. The mean margin moved the other way, to R+10.0 from R+12.1.

The two moves are not in conflict. What changed most is the width of the distribution. Our 5th-to-95th percentile range is now R+20.4 to D+0.3, against R+30.6 to D+6.4 before. The center of the race shifted about two points toward Hamilton, but the set of plausible outcomes tightened enough that almost none of them are Democratic wins. A closer expected margin with less uncertainty around it can still mean fewer paths.

That is the update on our September 1 note, which had our Kansas estimate drifting toward Hamilton without new polling. The drift has reversed, and the new survey is the first Kansas number in our average since the two close polls we wrote about on August 31.

Nationally, our model gives Democrats a 46 percent chance of Senate control and Republicans 53 percent, with a mean of 50.0 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to them. Our generic-ballot average stands at D+6.3 across 27 polls in a 45-day window.