Two PPP reads of NC-7 both show Rouzer up six

Public Policy Polling surveyed 517 likely voters in North Carolina's 7th District on August 19-20 and released two versions of the same question. The first, which included an option for other candidates, put Republican incumbent David Rouzer at 45 percent and Democrat Kim Hardy at 39, with 3 percent for others. The second, a straight two-way, put Rouzer at 49 and Hardy at 43. Both show a six-point gap.

Our model now gives Hardy a 22 in 100 chance of winning the seat and Rouzer a 78 percent chance. The mean projected margin is R+7.6, with a 5th-to-95th percentile range running from R+24.0 to D+8.6. That is a small move from our previous run, at 4:30 p.m. ET on August 28, which had Hardy at 20 percent and a mean margin of R+8.1. The new numbers polled slightly better for Hardy than our projected margin, and the forecast shifted accordingly, by about the amount that shift would imply. The wide interval did not narrow.

So this is confirmation rather than change. The district still leans Republican in our estimate, and the polling is a little to the Democratic side of that lean without contradicting it.

Nationally, our generic ballot average stands at D+6.6 across 23 polls in the last 45 days. Our model gives Democrats a 94 percent chance of reaching the 218 seats needed for House control, with a mean of 241.1 Democratic seats. One caveat on that figure is ours to own: our simulation correlates error nationally, by census division, by state and within each district, but we have no data to correlate demographically similar districts across state lines. Without that term, the House control number is marginally firmer than a fuller model would make it.