New High Point polls keep Cooper ahead in North Carolina Senate race

Two new surveys from High Point University/YouGov, both fielded August 3-12, put Democrat Roy Cooper ahead of Republican Michael Whatley in North Carolina's open Senate race. Among 800 registered voters, Cooper drew 48 percent to Whatley's 41 percent. Among a narrower sample of 660 likely voters, Cooper led 50 percent to 45 percent.

The two readings come from the same field period and differ mainly in whom they count. The likely-voter screen is the tighter of the pair, at five points; the registered-voter number is seven. Neither figure moved our estimate much. Our model now gives Cooper a 90 in 100 chance, up from 89 percent in the run earlier this morning, with a mean margin of D+8.5, up from D+8.1. The 5th-to-95th percentile range runs from R+2.5 to D+19.5, so outcomes on the Republican side of even remain inside what the model treats as normal error 74 days out.

In short, the new numbers confirm the shape our average already had rather than changing it. Both polls sit close to the model's central margin, which is why the shift was a single percentage point.

Nationally, our average of 24 generic-ballot polls over the last 45 days stands at D+6.7. In the Senate, we put Democratic chances of winning control at 48 percent against 52 percent for Republicans, with a mean of 50.2 Democratic seats; Democrats need 51 seats and Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to the Republicans. That arithmetic is part of why a seat priced at 90 percent for one party does not settle the chamber. On the House side, our model gives Democrats a 94 percent chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for control, with a mean of 242.5 seats. That House figure is marginally firmer than it should be: our error model correlates districts nationally, by census division, by state and individually, but we lack the data to correlate demographically similar districts across state lines.