Trafalgar puts Cooper up six in North Carolina, and our model holds at 84 percent

A Trafalgar Group survey of 1,084 likely voters in North Carolina, fielded September 8-10, puts Democrat Roy Cooper at 48.2 percent and Republican Michael Whatley at 42.3 percent, with 1.3 percent for other candidates. That is a Cooper lead of just under six points.

Our model now gives Cooper an 84 in 100 chance of winning the seat, with a mean margin of D+6.1. The previous run, at 4:32 p.m. ET today, had him at 85 percent on the same mean margin. The 5th-to-95th percentile range is unchanged at R+3.9 to D+16.1, which is to say our simulations still include outcomes where Whatley wins narrowly.

The new poll changed very little, because it says close to what our average already said. A six-point Cooper lead is within a tenth of a point of our mean margin. Polls that confirm an average move a forecast only at the margins, and the one-point shift in Cooper's win probability is smaller than the uncertainty attached to it.

The seat is open: Republican Thom Tillis is the incumbent and neither candidate on the ballot holds it. Nationally, our Senate picture is even. We give Democrats a 50 percent chance of winning control and Republicans 50 percent, with a mean of 50.3 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control and Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to the Republicans. Our generic-ballot average stands at D+6.8 across 22 polls from the last 45 days.

With 51 days until the November 3 election, North Carolina remains one of the races where our model leans clearly toward one side without treating the outcome as settled.