Election News

FiveThirtyEight launched its 2018 House Forecast late last week. There are three versions of the model, described more fully in this overview of the model methodology. 

An interactive map of the 'Classic' version of the forecast is below.  At a high level, this version couples available polling with numerous fundamental factors to derive a probability of victory for the individual candidates in each race. We group those probabilities as FiveThirtyEight does, so that our map is consistent* with theirs.

Click or tap the map to view the ranges and to use it as a starting point for your own 2018 House forecast.

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California was indicted Tuesday and charged with the illegal use of campaign funds over a seven year period. House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated Hunter would be removed from his committee assignments until the matter is resolved.

Hunter is in his fifth term representing a conservative San Diego-area district that supported Donald Trump by 15% in the 2016 election. Only seven of the state's 53 congressional districts voted for the president over Hillary Clinton that year.

Alaska and Wyoming hold primaries on Tuesday. Polls close at 7:00 PM Mountain Time (9:00 PM Eastern) in Wyoming, with Alaska polls following at 8:00 PM local time (midnight Eastern for most of the state). Wyoming has a Senate election, while both states have primaries for gubernatorial elections and their single, at-large congressional district. 

An overview of the races follows. Live results will be available after the polls close; reload this page for the latest.

Wyoming Primaries

Live there and not sure where to vote? Look up your polling place.

There are 80 days until the November 6th midterm elections. On this page, we present two battleground House maps based on the current ratings of Sabato's Crystal Ball, The Cook Political Report, and Inside Elections. 218 seats are needed to control the House in the 116th Congress that will be seated in January, 2019. 

Both maps are interactive - click/tap a map to use it as a starting point to create your own 2018 House forecast. 

Consensus Forecast: This first map is based on a calculated average rating of the three forecasters except that the darkest red/blue color is only used for those districts rated safe by all three forecasters. This gives us a broader view of the universe of seats that may be competitive on Election Day. Currently, 321 seats are seen as safe for the incumbent party, with 114 having various levels of competitiveness. Of those, about 95 are currently in GOP hands.

Before we dive into this week's primaries, an update from last week. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer conceded the GOP primary to Secretary of State Kris Kobach. This sets up a general election race between Kobach, Democrat Laura Kelly and independent Greg Orman. Colyer is the first governor to lose a bid for renomination this year.

Four states held primaries on Tuesday. All results can be found via the links above. A recap of each primary follows.

Minnesota

In the race to replace retiring Gov. Mark Dayton, limited polling hinted at one outcome, but the voters went in a different direction. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty lost the GOP primary to County Commissioner Jeff Johnson. Pawlenty has been a critic of President Trump, a positioning that has not worked out well for many Republicans in primaries thus far in 2018. On the Democratic side, Rep. Tim Walz (MN-01) won a three-way race against Erin Murphy and Lori Swanson. Rep. Rick Nolan (MN-08) ran as Swanson's running mate. He becomes the 7th current member of the House to lose an election for another office in 2018. This result shifts the general election outlook slightly in the Democrats favor.

Voters go to the polls in four states Tuesday. Select a state for an overview of key races. After the polls close, those same pages will have live results from all contested House, Senate and gubernatorial primaries.

Hawaii holds its primaries on Saturday. The state elects a Senator, governor and representatives from both congressional districts in 2018. Democrats are expected to retain control of all of these seats.

The most notable primary races are for the Democratic nomination for governor and in the first congressional district. Polls close at 6:00 PM local time, which is midnight Eastern. Reload this page after that time for the latest results.

Hawaii Gubernatorial Primaries

The too close to call Kansas GOP gubernatorial primary got even closer Thursday afternoon. Secretary of State Kris Kobach's lead over Gov. Jeff Colyer shrunk to 91 votes, as a 100 vote miscount was discovered in Thomas County. Out of over 311,000 votes counted thus far, that's a difference of about 0.03% between the two candidates. 

Provisional and mail-in ballots still need to be counted. If the final margin is less than 0.5%, which looks like will be the case here, a recount can be requested.

Here are the vote totals. This is a live feed, so numbers will be current as of the time you load the page:

The 'tilt' rating is now available on the House interactive map. The option had previously been added to the Senate and gubernatorial maps. 

There are now four ratings (safe, likely, leans, tilt) available for each party, as well as toss-up. Use the color palette to the right of the map to choose how many of those you want to rotate through on your map. Alternately, you can choose an individual rating to update multiple states/districts with a single click each. See our overview of the color palette options.

The tilt rating sits between toss-up and leans. The forecaster Inside Elections uses this designation for races that are highly competitive, but where one party has a slight edge. The maps below reflect their current 2018 projections. Select any of them to create and share your own 2018 forecast.

Federal prosecutors indicted Rep. Christopher Collins on Wednesday, charging the third term Republican with securities fraud, wire fraud and making false statements. The charges relate to insider trading associated with a biotech firm.

Collins represents New York's 27th congressional district, a conservative district between Buffalo and Rochester. Collins won reelection by 34% in 2016, and was unopposed in the state's primary in late June. Sabato's Crystal Ball has modified its 2018 election rating from safe to likely Republican on news of the indictment.