WASHINGTON.- Election analyst Nate Silver raised the Democrats' chance of winning the Senate to 79% in his final forecast update of November 2, 2026, up from 75% in his previous estimate, one day before Americans vote in the midterm elections on November 3, when all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are on the ballot. Silver shared the update on The Argument YouTube show, and it lands alongside final polls and prediction markets that all point the same way: a Democratic House win looks likely, and the Senate, long rated a toss-up, now leans Democratic too.
Silver's warning travels with his number. He cautioned that Democratic leads in the key battleground states — Texas, Ohio, Alaska and Maine — could disappear with a normal-sized polling error, the same caveat he attached to his October 29 forecast. The final New York Times/Siena polls of seven states, released November 1 and covering 5,708 voters interviewed from October 23 to November 1, put Democrats ahead in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Ohio, with narrower leads in Alaska and Iowa: Abdul El-Sayed leads Mike Rogers 53% to 42% in Michigan, James Talarico leads Ken Paxton 50% to 43% in Texas, Adam Hamilton leads Senator Roger Marshall 49% to 44% in Kansas, Troy Jackson leads Senator Susan Collins 51% to 45% in Maine, and former Senator Sherrod Brown leads Jon Husted 49% to 44% in Ohio.
What the other final models and the markets say
The other final forecasts agree on the House and lean the same way on the Senate. Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats an 84% chance of winning the House, projecting 241 seats, and a 64% chance of winning the Senate, projecting 52 seats. Another model, Midterm Forecast, puts the chances at 92% for the House and 76% for the Senate, with a median of 237 House seats and 53 Senate seats counting independents who caucus with Democrats. The Harvard ElectIt model assigns Democrats a 96% probability of taking the House and a 79% probability of gaining the Senate, projecting about 241 House seats and 53 Senate seats.
The prediction markets are even more confident about the House. As of Monday morning, Polymarket gave Democrats a 95% chance of winning the House and a 73% chance of taking the Senate, with a Democratic sweep the clear favorite; Kalshi showed a nearly identical outlook at 94% for the House. Those odds are not polls or forecasts: they reflect the prices traders are willing to pay, and they can move quickly. The polls behind the models tell the same story: the final NBC News poll, conducted October 28 to 30 among 1,000 registered voters, found voters prefer Democratic control of Congress 52% to 45%, and a separate CNBC survey had Democrats ahead by the same 52% to 45% margin, with 65% disapproving of President Donald Trump's handling of the economy. Democrats need a net gain of three seats in the House for 218 and four seats in the Senate for a majority, and more than 51 million Americans had already voted early.
Read more on The Wire Post: Piers Morgan Warns of an "Existential Night" for Pollsters if Republicans Defy the Midterm Polls, Democrats Lead in All Seven Most Competitive Senate Races in Final New York Times/Siena Poll on Eve of Midterms and Donald Trump Faces Final Forecasts Pointing to a Democratic House and a Coin-Flip Senate on the Eve of the Midterms.
Sources: Economic Times, DelawareOnline, Dawn, LiveNewsWorld and Times Now, November 2, 2026.