David Nir· Oct 23, 2024
Weighing special election results against generic ballot polling, Nir concludes the two indicators likely meet in the middle and predicts Democrats will win the national House popular vote by roughly 3 to 5 points.
“A final Democratic advantage in the House popular vote of around 3 to 5 points is both plausible and in line with both of these metrics.”
published in writing · The Downballot (newsletter) · read the original →
One checkable claim, graded on its own against what actually happened.
The call scored 44.5 out of 100, against 98.3 for a naive guess at the same calls.
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1 checkable claim in this take
Each one is scored on its own against the published methodology. A pundit naming several outcomes is graded on each, not on all-or-nothing.
- House Popular Vote MarginsOct 23, 2024
“A final Democratic advantage in the House popular vote of around 3 to 5 points is both plausible and in line with both of these metrics.”
Close · 45Scored 44.5a naive guess scored 98.3-54.88 skillHow this was scored
- election year:
- 2024
- party:
- Democratic
- skill:
- −54.88
- topic:
- elections
- their party's votes:
- 70,571,330
- what happened:
- −2.55
- in their words:
- around 3 to 5 points
- read as:
- as written
- result from:
- Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 5, 2024 (published March 10, 2025), "Recapitulation of Votes Cast for United States Representatives", Total row, PDF page 86 (printed page 84): https://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/2024/statistics2024.pdf; going in: Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 8, 2022 (published February 28, 2023), "Recapitulation of Votes Cast for United States Representatives", Total row, PDF page 57 (printed page 55): https://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/2022/statistics2022.pdf
- zero credit this far off:
- 10
- chamber:
- 2024-house
- what they counted:
- margin in points
- accuracy:
- 44.5
- baseline:
- 98.3
- days before the vote when called:
- 12
- difficulty:
- 1.02
- the other party's votes:
- 74,390,864
- votes cast:
- 149,543,421
- the naive guess:
- the previous election's national House margin
- Election Day:
- 2024-11-05
- their range:
- 3 to 5
- the naive guess said:
- −2.72
More house popular vote margins
The same kind of call, about other players and teams.
- Ben ShapiroHouse Popular Vote MarginsClose · 77Shapiro argued the midterm environment was breaking toward Republicans: he predicted the GOP would win the national generic/House vote by five to seven points, said Ted Budd and Brian Kemp would cruise in North Carolina and Georgia, expected strong Republican gubernatorial candidates in Arizona and Georgia to pull Blake Masters and Herschel Walker to victory, said Joe Lombardo would win Nevada's governorship, and made Lee Zeldin beating Kathy Hochul in New York his 'sleeper pick.'
- Lakshya JainHouse Popular Vote MarginsHit · 93In Split Ticket's final 2022 picks, forecasts Republicans winning 50 Senate seats to Democrats' 49 (with Georgia headed to a runoff), Republicans flipping the House with a 234-201 majority, and a national environment of roughly R+2.
- Harrison LavelleHouse Popular Vote MarginsHit · 93Co-author of Split Ticket's final 2022 picks, forecasting a 50-49 Republican Senate edge short of a majority, a Republican House flip at 234-201, and a national environment around R+2.
- G. Elliott MorrisHouse Popular Vote MarginsPendingMorris says both the polls and his model's non-poll "fundamentals" point to a strongly Democratic year, with his FiftyPlusOne House popular-vote forecast at roughly D+9. He also argues Henry Olsen's seat model understates Democrats by about 10 seats relative to Olsen's projected Democratic majority of 225–232.
- Daniel DonnerHouse Popular Vote MarginsPendingAnalyzing a long-run relationship between midterm primary turnout and the House popular vote, he concludes that 2026 primary turnout points to Democrats winning the national House vote by about 13 points, and says either that or the generic-ballot's smaller edge would be enough for Democrats to retake the House.
- Lakshya JainHouse Popular Vote MarginsPendingDespite his site's new nonpartisan polling average showing a razor-thin Democratic lead, he said he expects Republicans to win the national House popular vote and considers them clear favorites to take the House majority.