At Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman now rate control of the next Senate as a toss-up with the momentum moving towards the Democrats:
The end of the summer has been kind to Democrats. President Joe Biden’s approval rating, though still clearly weak, is improving, and House generic ballot polling shows a political environment that, at least at the moment, is roughly neutral. A few recent House special elections, specifically last week in upstate New York, give some credence to the reality of that polling. Gas prices, perhaps the easiest-to-notice indicator of the broader inflation problem, have fallen sharply from their spike earlier this summer, though one cannot predict with any level of certainty where gas prices will be on Election Day.
Democrats, hoping to make this election more of a choice than a referendum, are benefiting from some damaged Republican candidates in several key races as well as the emergence of abortion as a key issue in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision — and perhaps also from a continued focus on a particularly visible former president, Donald Trump. We have detailed many of these factors in our recent updates on the overall House, Senate, and gubernatorial picture.
Monday is Labor Day, a traditional campaign kickoff date that now is more of a signal that the never-ending campaign season is nearing conclusion. So we think it’s time to make a couple of key rating changes in the Senate. These changes reflect improving odds of Democrats holding their tiny majority, but still suggest an overall battle for the majority that is effectively a Toss-up.
We are moving 2 of our 4 Toss-ups, Arizona and Pennsylvania, from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, signifying a small Democratic edge in these 2 closely-watched contests. Our new Senate ratings are shown in Map 1. They reflect 49 seats at least leaning Democratic (including those not on the ballot this year), and 49 seats at least leaning Republican, with just 2 Toss-ups: Georgia and Nevada.
As things now stand for Republicans to capture the Senate the Republican candidates would need to prevail in both of the present toss-up contests (Nevada and Georgia) or capture some seats presently rated “leans Democratic”, “likely Democratic”, or “safe Democratic”, and not lose any seats rated leaning, likely, or safe for Republicans.
