Three AARP ballot tests put Begich ahead in Alaska; our forecast does not move

Three new ballot tests from the same survey all show Republican Rep. Nick Begich III ahead of independent Bill Hill in Alaska's at-large district. In a Fabrizio Ward/Impact Research poll for AARP of 800 likely voters, fielded September 8-11, Begich led Hill 57 percent to 43 percent head-to-head. In a version of the same survey that added unnamed party options, Begich took 51 percent to Hill's 35 percent, with 11 percent for a Democrat and 4 percent for another candidate. A third configuration had Begich at 45 percent, Hill at 31 percent, a Democrat at 9 percent and other candidates at 3 percent.

Our forecast is unchanged. The model gives Hill a 79 percent chance and Begich 21 percent, with a mean margin of Hill by 7.4 points. Those are the same figures as the 10:32 a.m. ET run; the only difference is the bottom of the range, which moved from Begich by 7.8 points to Begich by 7.7 at the 5th percentile. The 95th percentile remains Hill by 22.5. A Democratic candidate is not on our board here, and the model puts the Democratic chance of winning the seat at 0 in 100.

So the gap between the polling and the model persists rather than narrowing. The survey numbers sit near or beyond the Republican end of our range, and the model continues to weigh other information more heavily than these three ballot tests.

Nationally, our average on the generic ballot is Democrats by 7.2 points across 27 polls in a 45-day window. The model gives Democrats a 96 percent chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for House control, with a mean of 242.3 seats. One caveat on that figure is ours: our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and by district, but has no term linking demographically similar districts, so the House number is marginally firmer than it should be.