Balance of power, stated in numbers
Thirty-five Senate seats, the whole House and thirty-six governorships. Which of them are on the ballot is public record. What happens to them is this desk's opinion — published here with a number attached, months early, so the certified result can grade it.
The map does most of the work. Democrats must win every toss-up and then take a seat the desk currently rates as leaning the other way, without losing Georgia.
The midterm prior against the president's party is enormous and the majority is four seats. The counterweight is redistricting, which is why this is 63 and not 80.
Eighteen seats each and an unusual number of open mansions; the toss-ups tilt marginally toward the party out of the White House.
These three numbers are the whole exposure of the desk this cycle. They are dated, they will move as the inputs move, and every move is logged with its reason.
Median outcome: 49 Democratic seats, with eight runs in ten landing between 46 and 51. Fifty–fifty is not a tie — the vice-president breaks it for the Republicans, so 51 is the number that matters and the chart is drawn against 51.
The desk publishes the whole spread rather than one number, because a 52% call with a fat tail is a different object from a 52% coin flip.
- Ohio13.6%
- Florida13.0%
- Alaska10.5%
- Iowa10.2%
- Texas10.1%
- Kansas6.5%
- North Carolina6.1%
- Michigan4.9%
How often each seat delivers the 51st vote. This, not the national environment, is where the chamber is settled.
A rating is a probability. A race room is everything underneath it: why the seat is on the list, the evidence the desk actually holds for it, and the test that decides it. Where a first-party source pass is complete, the candidate ledger runs underneath.
The Senate board
35 seats up. Every one rated, every rating carrying the model's probability beside it.
The House board
218 for the gavel, and an honest account of why no district ratings are published yet.
The governors board
36 mansions up, an unusually even cycle, many of them open.
Scenarios
One knob on the national environment, and the published model re-running live behind it. Nothing on that page is graded.
The method
Seven printed coefficients, a seeded simulation, and the list of things this model cannot see.
The record
53 calls locked, 0 graded. The page that can embarrass the desk.
The 2024 reference layer
Certified returns to the state, the county and the district. The baseline every 2026 number starts from.
Ratings published early and dated
Every seat carries a probability from the day it appears on this board. Changes are logged with the date and the reason, never edited silently.
The board grades itself
On 4 November every rating on this page is scored against the certified result and folded into the desk's permanent calibration record — including the ones that embarrass us.
Structure and opinion are never mixed
Which seats are up and who holds them is public record. What happens to them is the desk's opinion, labelled as such wherever it appears.
Certified returns only, on the night
No projections sourced from other outlets' decision desks. When the canvass is not in, the board says the canvass is not in.
Structure: sitting members, class-2 Senate seats, 2026 gubernatorial cycle · retrieved 2026-08-11
Seat counts, incumbents, resolved nominations and announced retirements are public record as of the retrieval date: House composition from the House Press Gallery party breakdown (218 R, 212 D, 1 I, 4 vacancies), governorships at 26 R / 24 D after the November 2025 Virginia and New Jersey elections, and Georgia's 16 June 2026 runoffs. Ratings are the desk's own and are labelled as ratings everywhere they appear.