Co/efficient poll shows a close NC-1 race, and our forecast still favors Davis

A co/efficient survey of 623 likely voters in North Carolina's 1st District, fielded October 6-8, puts Republican Laurie Buckhout at 43 percent and Democratic Rep. Don Davis at 42 percent, with 2 percent choosing another option. A one-point gap in a poll of that size is not a lead. The race in this survey is close.

The poll did not move our forecast. Our model gives Davis a 93 in 100 chance of winning the seat, the same as in our run earlier this afternoon. His projected margin in our model is also unchanged at D+12.1. The only shift is at the edge of the range. The 5th percentile of our simulated outcomes moved from R+1.5 to R+1.7, while the 95th percentile held at D+25.7.

That range is the more useful reading of this poll. Our model already allowed for outcomes in which Buckhout wins, and a single survey showing a close race widens that tail slightly without changing the central estimate. Our model puts Buckhout's chance at 7 percent.

Nationally, our House model gives Democrats a 99 percent chance of winning a majority, with a mean of 246 Democratic seats against the 218 needed for control. Our average of the generic ballot stands at D+8.3 across 34 polls from the past 45 days. That House probability is somewhat firmer than it should be. Our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and within each district, but it lacks a term linking demographically similar districts in different places, because we have no data to build one.