High Point poll has Cooper up eight, and our forecast stays at 94 percent

A High Point University survey of 706 likely voters, fielded September 6-16, puts Democrat Roy Cooper at 50 percent and Republican Michael Whatley at 42 percent in North Carolina's open Senate race.

That is an eight-point margin, and it is close to what our model already had. Our forecast gives Cooper a 94 in 100 chance of winning the seat, with a mean margin of D+8.8 and a 5th-to-95th percentile range running from R+0.7 to D+18.3. The run before this one, at 8:32 AM ET on September 24, had the same 94 percent and the same mean margin, with a range topping out at D+18.2. In other words, the new number confirmed the existing picture rather than changing it.

The seat is open; the incumbent is Republican Thom Tillis, and neither candidate on the ballot is an incumbent. The width of our interval is the part worth keeping in view: our model still allows outcomes on the Republican side of even, just not many of them.

The national picture around the race is tighter than the race itself. Our model gives Democrats a 51 percent chance of winning Senate control against 48 percent for Republicans, with a mean of 50.5 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, drawn from 30 polls over a 45-day window, stands at D+8.3.

Forty days out, North Carolina is one of the more settled seats in our Senate map, and the High Point survey did not disturb it.