Model moves toward Pulido in TX-15 after Texas Southern poll

Our forecast in Texas's 15th District moved toward Democrat Bobby Pulido over the past week. On August 19, our model gave him a 36% chance against Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz. As of this morning, that is 45 in 100 — a gain of 8.7 points of win probability over seven days.

One poll arrived in that span. A Texas Southern University survey of 700 likely voters, fielded August 18-22, put Pulido at 50% and De La Cruz at 45%.

The model's central expectation still leans Republican, but by less than it did. Our mean margin is now R+1.2, against R+3.7 a week ago. The distribution around that is wide: our 5th-to-95th percentile range runs from R+17.8 to D+15.3, which is to say the model does not rule out a comfortable win for either candidate.

Nationally, our average of 27 generic-ballot polls over the past 45 days stands at D+6.5. Our model gives Democrats a 93% chance of winning a House majority, with a mean of 240.9 seats against the 218 needed. One caution on that figure is ours to make: our simulation draws error at four correlated levels — national, census division, state and district — but it has no term linking demographically similar districts in different places, because we lack the cluster data to build one. That absence makes the House control number marginally firmer than a fuller treatment would leave it.

In the Senate, our model gives Democrats a 44% chance of control, with a mean of 49.9 seats. Democrats need 51 seats; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes to them.