New TX-34 poll shows a close race; our forecast eases toward Gonzalez

A Public Policy Research/Texas Southern University survey of 700 likely voters in Texas' 34th District, fielded August 18-22, put Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez at 45 percent and Republican Eric Flores at 42 percent. That is a three-point gap with 13 percent unaccounted for, and it is best read as a close race rather than a measured lead.

Our model now gives Gonzalez an 81 in 100 chance of winning the seat, with a mean margin of D+9.0 and a 5th-to-95th percentile range running from R+7.7 to D+25.6. Before this run, at 10:30 a.m. ET, the model had him at 87 percent with a mean margin of D+11.4 and a range of R+5.1 to D+27.6. The new number moved the forecast, but not its shape: the district still leans Democratic in our simulations, and the interval still contains outcomes on both sides.

The wider picture has not changed with it. Our generic-ballot average, drawn from 27 polls over the past 45 days, stands at D+6.5. Nationally our model gives Democrats a 93 percent chance of winning at least the 218 seats needed for House control, with a mean of 241 seats, and a 45 percent chance of reaching the 51 Senate seats they would need — a 50-50 Senate goes to Republicans, because the vice president is a Republican.

One caveat on the House figure is ours, not the polling's. Our simulation draws correlated error at the national, census-division, state and district levels, but it has no term linking demographically similar districts across different parts of the country, because we lack the cluster data to build one. Without it, our House control probability is somewhat firmer than a fuller model would produce. How much firmer is not something this run measures.