Senate at 52-48 in our model; Minnesota and Kansas move most

Our model gives Democrats a 52 percent chance of winning Senate control and Republicans 48 percent, as of 6:32 AM ET. The mean outcome is 50.5 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. In the House, our estimate is a 97 in 100 Democratic chance of a majority, with a mean of 242.9 seats against the 218 needed for control.

That House figure carries a caveat of our own making. Our simulation draws correlated error at four levels: national, census division, state, and each district on its own. It does not include a term linking demographically similar districts in different places, because we have no cluster data for one. The effect is that our House control probability is marginally firmer than a fuller decomposition would leave it. We have not measured the size of the gap for this run and are not putting a number on it.

Our generic ballot average is D+7.4, drawn from 28 polls over a 45-day window. Two of the most recent are in that average. John Zogby Strategies, surveying 1,007 likely voters September 15-17, had Democrats at 48 percent and Republicans at 42. Morning Consult, for the CATO Institute, surveyed 4,150 registered voters September 13-16 and had Democrats at 47 and Republicans at 42.

The largest movement over the past day was in Minnesota, where our estimate of the Democratic chance fell 15.7 points, from 91 percent to 75 percent. Kansas moved 12.1 points the other way, from 9 percent to 21 percent, alongside an Emerson College poll for The Hill of 750 likely voters, fielded September 15-16, that put Adam Hamilton at 44.8 percent and Roger Marshall at 43.3 with 3.7 percent for others — close enough that we do not read a leader from it. North Carolina rose 9.7 points to 94 percent after an InsiderAdvantage survey of 1,200 likely voters, September 16-17, gave Roy Cooper 48.4 percent to Michael Whatley's 42.5.

Florida rose 7.3 points to 36 percent, with St. Pete Polls, for Florida Politics, finding Ashley Moody at 45.2 percent and the Democrat at 44.8 among 913 likely voters September 15-17. Michigan eased 4.4 points to 66 percent; InsiderAdvantage had Abdul El-Sayed at 46.6 percent and Mike Rogers at 44.7 in a September 16-17 poll of 1,200 likely voters, a close race on those numbers. Iowa moved down 4.9 points and now sits at 42 percent. In Alaska, co/efficient surveyed 799 likely voters September 14-17 and found Dan Sullivan at 49 percent and Mary Peltola at 46, also close.