Decision Desk HQ Relaunches Forecast

After a month-long pause due to President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw his candidacy, the Decision Desk HQ Forecast model is back.

As part of the relaunch we’ve made some changes in our methodology between the two models as it relates to polling specifically in how we are using a blended average of polls with multiple candidates and weighing them against the demographic fundamentals of each race. You can read our full, updated methodology statement here.

As of our relaunch on August 26th, the presidential model shows Kamala Harris with a 55% chance of winning the presidency. This compared to the 56% chance our previous model gave Donald Trump to defeat Joe Biden when Biden dropped out of the race.

Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin remain Toss-ups (but with Harris improving on Biden’s probabilities in each of these states), while Michigan moves from Toss-up to Lean Democratic and North Carolina moves from Lean Republican to Toss-up

In the Senate, Republicans still lead with a 67% chance to take the majority, compared to their 78% chance when Biden led the Democratic ticket (Note: Our senate model has been updated to better reflect the GOP or Democratic party chances of control of the Senate, based on simulated outcomes of the Presidential election. Incorporating this change led to an increase in overall GOP Senate control chances by a few percentage points from the original forecast.).

Control of the House is still a relative toss up, with the GOP having a 56% chance of winning control compared to their 61% chance prior to our pause in the model.

You can compare the full results of our relaunched model with our original Biden-Trump forecasts here.