Four-point Hart poll leaves our Louisiana Senate numbers unmoved

A Hart Research Associates survey of 500 likely voters in Louisiana, fielded September 17-19, has Republican Julia Letlow at 48 percent and Democrat Jamie Davis at 44 percent. The gap is four points in a sample that size, close enough that the poll on its own does not establish who is ahead.

Our forecast did not move on it. The model gives Davis a 9 in 100 chance of winning the open seat, against 91 percent for Letlow, with a mean margin of R+13.7. That is identical to our previous run at 4:32 PM ET; the only change anywhere in the distribution was the top of our 5th-to-95th percentile range, which went from R+30.6 to D+3.3 to R+30.6 to D+3.2. In other words, a single 500-voter poll showing a tighter contest than our average is well inside what the model already allowed for, and it did not shift the central estimate.

One thing has changed since we last wrote about this race in August, when the Democrat's chance stood at 2 in 100. It is now 9 in 100. That is still a race our model expects the Republican to win more often than not by a double-digit margin, but the floor is higher than it was a month ago.

Nationally, our average on the generic ballot is D+8.1 across 30 polls from the last 45 days. In the Senate, we give Democrats a 54 percent chance of winning control and Republicans 45 percent, with a mean of 50.7 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 them. Louisiana is not among the seats our model expects to decide that.