Our Iowa Senate estimate moves three points toward Turek in the latest run

Our model now gives Democrat Josh Turek a 61 in 100 chance of winning the open Iowa Senate seat, up from 58% in the run at 8:32 AM ET on October 2. Republican Ashley Hinson's chance moved from 42% to 39%. The incumbent in the seat is Republican Joni Ernst.

The poll in this update is a Beacon Research/Shaw & Company Research survey for Fox News of 1,204 registered voters, fielded September 24-28. It put Turek at 50% and Hinson at 46%. That is a close race. It is not a result that sets this contest apart from the others we have tracked here.

The change is in our estimate, not in the race's basic shape. Our model's average margin moved from D+1.1 to D+1.5. Its range of likely outcomes, from the 5th to the 95th percentile, now runs from R+7.7 to D+10.6, compared with R+8.1 to D+10.3 before. Both ends shifted modestly toward Turek, and the range still comfortably includes a Hinson win.

Iowa matters for the national picture. Our model gives Democrats a 55% chance of winning Senate control and Republicans 45%. Democrats need 51 seats for a majority; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to them. Our model's average outcome is 50.6 Democratic seats, short of the 51 Democrats need, which leaves individual races like this one carrying weight in the overall chance.

There are 32 days until the election on November 3.