The early House races that tell you how big the night is, the Senate seats Democrats need, and what each result means as it comes in. Check off what happens; everyone on this page sees the same board.
Republicans hold 53 seats. Vice President Vance breaks a 50-50 tie, so Democrats need 51. The board lists every race RealClearPolling rates below Safe: 17 seats, five of them held by Democrats. Mark each race as it is called.
| State | Race | Rating | Polls since August | Poll avg. | Silver avg. | Polymarket | Your pick | Result |
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Pick a winner in each race before it's called. Picks lock once a race is called.
Republicans hold 218 seats to the Democrats' 214. The question is less whether Democrats win the House than by how much. The early races below set the scale.
Nothing checked yet. Results from Kentucky and Indiana start the read at 6 p.m.
Democrats run the state only if they keep the governorship and the House and also win the Senate. Bolts reports that Democrats have not controlled the Senate since 1993. Counts come from the Department of State results feed; the share counted is measured against each district's 2022 turnout.
Shapiro (D) v. Garrity (R)
| District | Candidates | Held by | Margin, last race | Counted | Margin now |
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Senate seats are the five Bolts lists as deciding control. House seats are the 12 closest from 2024 plus District 12, which flipped in an August 2026 special election.
Our Senate model uses Silver Bulletin's FLIPR polling averages and a polling-error model with shared and race-by-race parts, calibrated on FiveThirtyEight's poll archive. Its central case assumes polls overstate Democrats by 1.5 points, for an expected 52-48 Senate and a 74% chance of Democratic control. As races are called, this section measures the actual miss against each race's final polling average.
| Race | Polls | Result | Polls overstated |
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Enter the winner's margin once a race is called, and update it as the count settles. The polling average is Silver Bulletin's where we have it and RealClearPolling's otherwise. Pennsylvania's governor race fills in from the state count once it is projected.
Polymarket prices for a Democratic win, read as a percent chance. The line at 50 marks an even race.
| Source | Feeds | Last update |
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Live updates run while the page's owner has it open in the Claude desktop app.
The hour-by-hour plan and the thresholds credited to Chuck Todd, Decision Desk HQ, Cook's Erin Covey and Silver Bulletin follow @Title9Jen's Nov. 1 guide, which cites Todd's "How to Watch Election Night" (Oct. 28) and DDHQ's "Key House races to watch early" (Oct. 26). They appear as she summarized them. This is a viewing guide, not a forecast.