Republicans Strengthen House Position; Will There be Dino-mite in the Senate?

Top Line Numbers

Republicans scored their highest yet probability of taking the House in today's model run -- 78.1%.  The estimated Republican seat count after the election stands at 230 in both our low-end estimate and the median estimate.   The low-end estimate is also the highest yet for Republicans on this measure.

As for the Senate, our macro model is indicating a Republican seat count of 49.5 and a control probability of 28%.   (Remember -- the InTrade control contract on which our model is based would not count a Murkowski victory toward Republican control; presently our model shows the Alaska race favoring Joe Miller with a 64% probability of winning, Senator Murkowski at 29% chance and Democrat McAdams with a 7% chance).

Our micro level model (still operating on a wide screen for analysis purposes) currently projects a Republican seat count of 48.4 seats. The same caveats apply to our micro model as do our micro model, i.e.; a Murkowski win would not count as a Republican seat.  

The following table shows our current probability range estimates for the most competitive races.

The table lists those Senate races where  the Republican and Democratic candidate both have a victory probability of greater than 20% on our midpoint estimate.  None of the six is a seat currently held by Republicans.  At our low end estimate (for Republicans) the Republican candidate has a greater than 50% chance of winning in four of the six; at the upper end estimate the Republican is above 50% in five of the six.  If Republicans were to win those five they would control the upper chamber.  One of the changes in today's rankings is that our model now gives Sharon Angle a higher probability of victory than Matt Kirk in Illinois, although the margin is very narrow.