As I had anticipated Kyle Kondik has an update on the midterm elections at Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Here’s the bottom line:
This week’s rating changes leave us with 219 seats at least leaning Republican. 196 at least leaning Democratic, and 20 Toss-ups. Splitting those would lead to a 229-206 Republican House, or a net gain of 16 for Republicans. However, as we wrote above, that represents the low end of what we’re expecting, and we think our final handicap will be better for Republicans.
The Senate remains a toss-up. Here in Illinois the status of the 6th Congressional District, presently represented by Democrat Sean Casten, has shifted from “likely Democratic” to “leans Democratic”. Given that the boundaries of the gerrymandered 6th had been drawn specifically to save Casten’s seat while packing Republicans into an adjoining district, it would be a shock if he lost his re-election bid.
A quick look does not reveal any polling in the IL-6. It looks like all of the sudden outside money poured in giving everybody the impression that internal polling has the Democratic incumbent in trouble. I also see a quote from Casten that will probably inflict pain: “A little bit of inflation would actually be a good thing.”
Just eye-balling the district, this is more Lipinski’s old district than Casten’s, meaning that the district might be Democratic, but more precisely conservative Democratic with pro-Life strains.