Our Michigan Senate forecast moves 8.6 points toward El-Sayed in a week

Our model's estimate of the Michigan Senate race has moved 8.6 points of Democratic win probability in seven days. In the run of September 23 at 6:32 AM ET, it gave Democrat Abdul El-Sayed a 71% chance against Republican Mike Rogers. It now gives him a 79 in 100 chance, with Rogers at 21%.

Our projected margin moved with it, from D+3.2 to D+4.6. The model's 5th-to-95th percentile range narrowed on the Republican side, from R+6.4 to D+12.7 in the earlier run to R+4.6 to D+13.8 now. That range still includes a Rogers win.

The newest poll in our data is a Marist University survey of 1,235 registered voters, fielded September 24-27, which found El-Sayed at 54% and Rogers at 42%. That 12-point margin is wider than other recent Michigan polling. A Big Data Poll survey of 678 likely voters, fielded September 22-24, had El-Sayed at 46.7% and Rogers at 42.1%, a close race. A co/efficient survey of 843 likely voters, fielded September 21-23, found the two tied at 50% each. The payload does not say how much weight our model gave any single survey, so this note does not assign the movement to one poll.

The seat is open. Our model gives Democrats a 58% chance of winning Senate control, with a mean of 50.9 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.