Polling guru Nate Silver has upgraded Democrats’ chances of winning control of the U.S. Senate in November’s midterm elections, with his forecast now giving the party a 75 percent probability of victory.
Silver’s FLIPR 2026 midterm election forecast, published by Silver Bulletin, previously classified Democrats’ chances as “Lean D” as their prospects of retaking the chamber improved. The forecast has now moved into the “Likely D” category, marking a further shift in the model’s outlook.
Silver’s model uses polling data and other indicators to estimate the likelihood of different election outcomes. Its probabilities are estimates rather than guarantees, and the outlook can change as new polling and other information become available, but the latest upgrade suggests the model increasingly favors Democrats in the battle for the chamber.
The Electoral College and the popular vote are very strongly correlated. The EC only ever comes into play when the election is very close in terms of popular vote, and then polls can’t give a (near) certain answer anyway.
In fact, US elections are much easier to predict using polling than elections in most other places, because a) the US electorate has extremely high voter loyalty compared to typical values elsewhere, especially in functional democracies and b) there is a lot of high-quality polling data available.
Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by more than 2% of the popular vote, which I would say is not “very close” in this context. So I’m not sure I agree with your premise.