Emerson poll finds NY-17 close, and our forecast for Conley edges down

An Emerson College survey for PIX 11 of 400 likely voters, fielded September 27-29, found Democrat Cait Conley at 47.9% and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler at 45.6%. That 2.3-point gap is small for a sample of that size, and the race in this poll is close.

Our model now gives Conley a 67 in 100 chance of winning New York's 17th District, down from 69% in our run earlier this morning. Our projected mean margin moved from D+4.3 to D+3.7. The poll showed Conley ahead by less than our model had projected, so it pulled the estimate slightly toward Lawler. It did not change the basic picture. Conley remains the modest favorite in our forecast, and Lawler's chances rose from 31% to 33%.

The range of outcomes our model considers plausible is still wide. Its 5th-to-95th percentile band now runs from R+10.5 to D+17.8, compared with R+9.9 to D+18.5 before. With 33 days until the November 3 election, a single 400-person poll can move that range only a little.

Nationally, our model gives Democrats a 98% chance of winning a House majority, which requires 218 seats, with a mean of 245.3 Democratic seats across our simulations. That figure is a little firmer than it should be. Our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and by district, but it does not link demographically similar districts in different regions, because we lack the data to do so. Our generic ballot average stands at D+8.2 across 30 polls from the past 45 days.