96 percent chance Democrats take House, 78 percent for Senate: Harvard model

Recently updated election models from Harvard University forecast a strong chance of Democrats winning a majority of seats in the House and the Senate in the midterm elections.

The chances of Democrats taking the House are as good as 96 percent, the Harvard model forecasts . According to the model, the chances of Republicans winning the House are “as likely as rolling a 20 on a twenty-sided die.”

“Our forecast expects the underdog to win with these odds once in about 26 elections. The last time an underdog won with similar odds was 1952,” researchers wrote.

The Democrats need 218 seats to take the House and, by Harvard’s models, 186 seats are labeled safe, 36 are considered likely and nine lean toward Democrats. The model predicts 10 seats as toss-ups.

The overall projection, by this model, stands at 242 Democratic seats in the House.

Even though the odds are slightly lower than in the House, the Democrats still have a 78 percent chance of taking the Senate, according to Harvard .

To win the Senate majority, a party would need 51 seats, and the current overall projections from Harvard forecast 53 Democratic seats in the Senate.

Out of the 35 Senate races happening this year, seven have been labeled as competitive races. Races in Texas, Ohio, Kansas and Alaska are in the “Lean Democrat” category while South Carolina and Nebraska are in the “Lean Republican” category.

The model shows the Iowa Senate race as a toss-up.

The model presents five scenarios of predictability along with historical polling errors. These include if the polls are correct, normal polling error favoring Democrats or Republicans and historic polling error favoring either party.

“Since 1950, the median polling error is 2 points in either direction, and 3 of the 19 midterms have had an error within 0.5 points,” according to the forecast.