West Virginia Takes Center Stage Today

West Virginia took center stage today in delivering volatility to the InTrade markets.  Our model's midpoint probability for a Republican win dropped 19.6% to 41.4%.  The move appears primarily related to the release of a new poll by Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) giving Manchin a 6 point edge.  This is up from a 3 point lead in PPP's last poll and compares to the most recent Rasmussen Reports survey in West Virginia that showed Manchin trailing by 7 points. 

This move in West Virginia dropped the number of seats that Republicans are above 50% in to 26 from 27.  If Republicans were to win all 26, they would end up with 49 seats in the Senate.  Based on current volatility where both candidates are bouncing around between 40% and 60%, we could well see  this seat bounce back and forth more than once over the next week.

Here are our two graphics on seven closely contested Senate races.

As an aside, several readers have asked how our projections compare with those of Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight (now with New York Times).  In general, our projections have not varied greatly over the last two weeks.  Presently, our forecast is a little more positive for Republicans than his.  Here's the present comparison.  We've listed both our micro and macro models for the Senate.

Before turning to the House side, here is the updated trend chart from our Senate micro model.

On the House side of the ledger, our forecast did drop back one House seat to 234 in today's data run.  The probability of Republican House control also declined marginally, but Republicans still remain overwhelming favorites to take control of the House of Representatives.

Please take the time to check out our InTrade $play portfolio on the InTrade portfolio page.  No new trades today, but we will be making some aggressive moves tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will be putting up a new series of polls asking readers for their views on how they view the outcome of our seven key Senate races.  Make sure to vote and encourage friends and colleagues to contribute to their wisdom to the crowd.