New NC-1 poll puts Davis up seven, and our forecast barely moves

A GBAO survey of 500 likely voters in North Carolina's 1st District, fielded September 8-11 for House Majority PAC, has Democratic incumbent Don Davis at 50% and Republican Laurie Buckhout at 43%.

That is close to what our model already had. Our forecast gives Davis an 89 in 100 chance, with a mean margin of D+11.1 and a 5th-to-95th percentile range running from R+4.1 to D+26.3. The previous run, from earlier this afternoon, had him at 88% with the same mean margin. The new number did not change the shape of the race in our model; it confirmed it.

One caveat on the poll itself: it was sponsored by House Majority PAC, a partisan sponsor, and the payload gives no margin of error for the 500-voter sample. Our model weights it accordingly. The wider point is that our own margin range still includes Republican outcomes — the bottom of it is a four-point Buckhout win — even with Davis favored.

Nationally, our average of 24 generic-ballot polls over the past 45 days stands at D+6.8. Our model gives Democrats a 95% chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for House control, with a mean of 241.1 Democratic seats. One note on that figure: our simulation draws correlated error at the national, census-division, state and district levels, but not across demographically similar districts in different places, because we have no cluster data for it. That omission makes the House control probability somewhat firmer than a fuller error model would leave it.

The Senate is the closer chamber in our numbers. Democrats need 51 seats there and Republicans 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to the Republicans. Our model gives Democrats a 48% chance of Senate control against 52% for Republicans, with a mean of 50.1 Democratic seats.