Democratic campaign poll shows FL-16 even; our model still favors Gruters

A new poll of Florida's 16th District finds the race close. SEA Polling surveyed 400 likely voters from August 25 to 29 and had Democrat Kelly Kirschner at 40 percent and Republican Sydney Gruters at 39 percent — a one-point gap in a sample that size, which is to say no measurable lead for either candidate. The poll was published by kellykirschner.com, the Democrat's campaign site.

Our forecast did not move. As of 12:02 PM ET on September 4, our model gives Gruters an 85 percent chance and Kirschner a 15 in 100 chance, with a mean margin of R+10.2. The run at 10:32 AM ET that morning had the same win probabilities and the same mean margin; the only change is a hair's difference at the bottom of the distribution, with the 5th-to-95th percentile band now running from R+26.2 to D+5.8 instead of R+26.0 to D+5.8.

That is a wide gap between a single survey and our estimate, and the model is treating it as one data point rather than a new baseline. Our range already allows for a Kirschner win — D+5.8 sits at the 95th percentile — so a poll showing a tied race is inside what the forecast contemplates without being enough to shift the central estimate. It is also a poll circulated by one of the campaigns, which is how our average will weigh it.

Nationally, our generic-ballot average stands at D+6.3 across 25 polls in a 45-day window, and our model gives Democrats a 93 percent chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for House control, with a mean of 239.4 seats. One caution on that figure: our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and by district, but we have no data to correlate demographically similar districts across state lines. Without that term, the House control number is marginally firmer than it should be.