Abacus poll puts South Carolina Republican up 13; our model still reads R+11

An Abacus Data survey of 2,500 likely voters, fielded August 29, has the Republican line at 55% and Democrat Annie Andrews at 42% in the South Carolina Senate race. That is a 13-point Republican advantage, and it is the widest of the recent numbers this site has covered.

Our forecast did not move much. The model now gives Andrews a 17 in 100 chance against Republican incumbent Darline Graham, with a mean margin of R+11.1 and a 5th-to-95th percentile range from R+30.1 to D+7.4. The run before it, at 10:30 a.m. ET on Saturday, had Andrews at 16% with the same mean margin and a nearly identical range. In other words, a poll well to the right of our average nudged the Democratic number up by a point, which is what happens when a single survey lands inside a distribution that already spans about 37 points.

The practical effect is that our model's read on the race has been stable across polls pointing in different directions. It was R+11 when the last two surveys showed a tie, and it is R+11 now that one shows a double-digit Republican lead. The polling average is not the only input, and no single August poll carries enough weight to reshape it.

Nationally, our model gives Democrats a 43% chance of Senate control and Republicans 57%, with a mean of 49.9 Democratic seats. Democrats need 51 seats for control; Republicans need 50, because the vice president is a Republican and a 50-50 tie goes their way. That arithmetic is why a seat our model rates as an 83% Republican favorite still matters to the chamber: our average generic ballot stands at D+6.6 across 22 polls in the last 45 days, and Democratic paths to 51 run short without races like this one breaking their way.