David Byler

What the conventional wisdom misses about 2018 and 2020.

An attempt to think a little more clearly about the Democratic presidential primary.

Looking back at the performance of TWS’s First Forecast Model

The votes counted after Election Day have been rough for the GOP.

Trump is stronger; but red states are now in play.

Election Day is still here, people!

Why I think his odds have dropped in the last two years.

It's about 2020, stupid.

The possible takeaways from Beto O'Rourke's performance.

What data from 2016 and 2018 tell us about 2020.

Not perfect, but nonetheless impressive.

Political gravity, 2020 and the shape of the new House.

The data did a pretty good job in 2018.

And what's next.

Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis defy predictions to win Senate, gubernatorial races.

Data-driven projections in all three categories.

Democratic wave or Republican surprise? Americans are going to pass judgment on President Trump.

A statistic that’ll be relevant for about five more days.

It's not really about Beautiful Ted and Beto. It's about the future.

The Senate races that could shock you on election night.

What the model shows.

What we do and don’t know .

How Trump's Presidency Might Lead to the End of Walker's Governorship

A fun look back at a district-picking game

Marsha Blackburn might be the most important Republican on the Senate map.

A Different Way To Look At the House Elections

Solving a paradox in the forecast.

The Republican win probability has doubled in Arizona.

Not much.

Some data and context.

Our model shows Republicans winning about 70 percent of model simulations.

We have data.

Who are people searching for, and what issues do they care about?

Tons of Data is Rolling in from The Upshot’s Polling Project

A swing through the best/worst realistic scenarios for both parties.

Two very different Republicans try to win in the same state in a rough year.

What Americans think of Trump's Supreme Court Nominee

It's a real possibility, and it's worth gaming out

He’s still the favorite, but it’s not risk-free.

Here's how the model reacted to the latest wave of new polls.

Probably not.

We've made a few changes that increase the model's accuracy.

Is Tom Carper next?

While we were all occupied with Manafort and Cohen, the pollsters were in the field .

His district is just that red.

Three examples of what not to do.

Part 2 in an ongoing, informal, math-y series

How not to get tricked by noise.

A full update on Tuesday night's primaries

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont vote.

Both parties have had some good polls. Here's how you should digest the results.

Second verse, same as the first.

As far as I know, Time magazine never ran a cover calling Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker the “Republican Savior.” But at one time, he fit the bill.

An all-encompassing poll of campaigns provides a different way to chart out key races.

Did Trump’s coddling of Putin damage his approval rating?

On Tuesday night, Brian Kemp—the Georgia secretary of state and self-proclaimed “politically incorrect conservative” who owns a truck, talks about standing for the national anthem and happily supports President Trump—beat Lieutenant Gov. Casey Cagle in the state’s gubernatorial runoff, officially…

The Special Election in Ohio's 12th District Has Flown Under the Radar

Trump's most popular tweets are written by his staff.

A recent poll and one from May indicate the beleaguered Democratic incumbent is unexpectedly weak.

The early numbers make sense based on what we know about partisanship and history.

SwingSeat: Republicans get good news in Tennessee but bad news in West Virginia and Montana.

SwingSeat update: Why new polling Arizona, Texas, and Nevada doesn't change the overall picture.

Nearly every news cycle in the Trump Era contains at least one predictable part—the Trump Tweet. Whether the news cycle is about a policy debate, a political scandal, a cultural fight between Trump and a celebrity—or something else entirely—the president almost always tweets something.

Donald Trump is unpopular. If you’ve read any of the wonkier election or polling coverage in the last 18 or so months, that shouldn’t be a surprise. But what, exactly, do people like—and dislike—about Trump? Quinnipiac recently did some polling that sheds light on these two questions.

On June 26, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off an upset victory against Incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, a senior Democrat who had been floated as a replacement for Nancy Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez is a Democratic Socialist who ran on a platform that involved abolishing ICE, Medicare for all,…

This is one the best GOP results of the Trump era.

The model might be too high on Sinema. But it also might have a point.

Progressive leftists got some wins, but they aren't the Democratic Tea Party yet.

SwingSeat update: We have updated forecasts in Texas, Arizona, and Florida.

Maybe the bump in the generic ballot was just noise.

A user manual for our Senate prediction model.

Both Republicans and Democrats avoided elevating bad candidates in marquee races.

A sober, quantitative analysis of a completely bonkers primary.

Kasich is a more interesting as a third party candidate than he is as a primary challenger

Get ready for West Virginia's Republican primary

It turns out projecting 435 House Races using one polling number is tough

I’m in the middle of a long-term project—I’m building a Senate election model and writing about the process as I go (see previous posts here). At this point I’ve written a lot of the code and I was tempted to devote this update to how I’m aggregating polls, forecasting final vote shares, or…

Debbie Lesko underperformed Trump by about 16 Points—that's not a great result.

The Most Special Election Yet

This isn't a story about Donald Trump's takeover of the GOP.

Don’t stress about just one poll – fundamentals still favor Republicans in Texas

What another set of special elections tells us about the Trump Era.

The state shifted right during the Trump Era, and the gubernatorial race is a toss-up

The outgoing speaker's district will be in play this November.

Rick Scott is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida.

In less than three weeks, the 2018 election will head to Arizona. Republican Rep. Trent Franks resigned late last year amid a scandal involving money, staffers and surrogacy (it's a bizarre story), triggering a special election in Arizona's 8th District. In a normal year, this district would be…

On Tuesday, Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Mike Espy's campaign released an internal poll showing him in the lead in Mississippi's upcoming Senate election. The headline might sound like good news for Democrats—every candidate obviously prefers to be ahead, and Mississippi is extremely…

For the past week, Trump's approval rating in the RealClearPolitics average has hovered close to 42 percent. That's an improvement from early March, when the average briefly dipped below 40 percent. FiveThirtyEight didn't shift as much in that interval, but its aggregate shows that Trump gained…

Everyone knows that President Trump is historically unpopular and his low approval rating is putting Republicans in real danger of losing at least the House in 2018. At this point, that's old news.

What if there were no polls?

For decades, Ohio has been a political bellwether—a quadrennial swing state that often voted for the winning presidential candidate. But in 2016, something odd happened—Ohio jerked sharply to the right, giving now President Trump an eigh-point win despite his two-point national popular vote loss.…

On Tuesday, Illinois’ incumbent Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, barely won renomination for his 2018 re-election bid. He defeated Jeanne Ives, a state legislator who was challenging him from the right, by only three points in the state’s primary. That’s not a great showing for Rauner – incumbent…

Last week, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran announced that he was resigning due to health issues, triggering a November special election for the open Senate seat. Mississippi isn’t usually a problematic state for Republicans. It’s a strongly red, highly inelastic state—meaning that it usually votes…

In a normal year, a special congressional election in Pennsylvania’s 18th District (a highly red area that includes the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh and surrounding rural areas) wouldn’t be a huge deal. Trump carried the district by about 20 points in 2016, so Republicans should have been able to…

We are coming down to the wire in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, where Republican Rick Saccone will face Democrat Conor Lamb in a special election, for a term of just seven months. Here are four questions (and answers) to clarify what’s at stake, how close the contest is, and what it means for 2018…

Donald Trump is historically unpopular, and Republicans are underperforming his margins in special elections across the country. Some might be tempted to look at these numbers and conclude that Trumps’ re-election effort (which is already underway) is doomed.

Mississippi senator Thad Cochran announced Monday that he would be retiring as of April 1 due to health issues. Cochran’s retirement will trigger a special election for November 2018—a nonpartisan primary that, if no candidate gets above 50 percent, will go to a runoff.

Donald Trump is beating Congressional Republicans in the polls. And that’s not necessarily great news for either of them.

Gubernatorial elections are high maintenance.

Donald Trump’s job approval rating may be heading downward.

Which party is going to win control of the Senate in the midterm elections? It’s a simple question. But also a difficult one. And right now, I’m in the middle of the process of building a model that will try to shed some light on it by calculating win probabilities for every Senate contest.

When is Texas going to turn blue?

In less than a month, voters in Pennsylvania’s 18th District will head to the ballot box for one of the most interesting special elections of the year. Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone will be vying to fill the seat vacated by resigning Republican Rep. Tim Murphy. (The pro-life…

Most Americans have probably heard the parable of the blind men and the elephant. There are different versions of the story, but the basic idea is that a group of blind men encounter an elephant, and they each touch different parts of it. One man feels the tail, another the leg, another the ear,…

On Tuesday, Politico and Morning Consult published a poll showing Republicans ahead of Democrats by one point in the generic ballot. This is an improvement for the GOP—Morning Consult put Democrats ahead by four in its last two polls and had them up by 10 in December. The poll also shows Trump with…

On Monday, Democrats outperformed Hillary Clinton in two state legislative special elections in Minnesota (senate district 54 and state house district 23B). These races didn’t generate the flashy headlines that some others have—neither seat changed hands and Democratic overperformance was below…

On Tuesday, Missouri Democrat Mike Revis won a special election for the state’s 97th House District, barely flipping a district that Donald Trump won by 28 points. Democrats are happy about the victory, using it to argue that voters are generally unhappy with the Republican party. Republicans,…

According to the RealClearPolitics average, 42.2 percent of poll respondents approve of Trump’s job performance. FiveThirtyEight has Trump’s approval rating at 42.5 percent among voters and HuffPost Pollster has him at 41.6 percent. And in all three of these aggregators, the basic story is the…

For much of December and early January, Democrats held a double digit lead in the RealClearPolitics average for the generic ballot–a poll that basically asks a national sample of voters which party they intend to vote for in the upcoming congressional elections. Today, that advantage is down to…

Texas is the Democratic white whale. Every election cycle, some enterprising statewide (or national) Democratic candidate tries to flip the state by winning the governorship, a senate seat, or the state’s electoral college votes. And recently, they haven’t had much success. Texas has elected…

The basic math of the 2018 Senate elections shows a challenge for Democrats. In order to win control of the upper chamber, the party need to successfully defend all 26 of its seats up for election (some of which are in highly red states like Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and…

In less than two months, the 2018 election will head straight into Trump-land: the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Last October, Republican Rep. Tim Murphy resigned (he was facing ethics issues regarding his treatment of employees and had encouraged his mistress to get an abortion—not a great look…

If you’ve read any election coverage in the last 12 months, you probably know that college-educated voters don’t like President Trump. In the 2016 election, Trump made significant gains with non-college-educated white voters but lost a significant number of traditionally Republican, affluent,…

Donald Trump is historically unpopular. At the end of 2017, the three major polling aggregators—the Huffington Post Pollster, Real Clear Politics, and FiveThirtyEight—put his approval rating at 40.4, 40, and 37.9 percent respectively. According to FiveThirtyEight’s historical averages, this is the…

Donald Trump is historically unpopular. At the end of 2017, the three major polling aggregators—the HuffPost Pollster, Real Clear Politics, and FiveThirtyEight—put his approval rating at 40.4, 40, and 37.9 percent, respectively. According to FiveThirtyEight’s historical averages, this is the worst…

On Tuesday night, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker seemed rattled. In a special election in the state’s 10th Senate district, Democrat Patty Schachtner beat Republican Adam Jarchow, taking over district that voted for Trump by 17 points in 2016. Walker responded by firing off a series of tweets that…

On Tuesday, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, jumped into the race for Arizona’s now-open Senate seat. Arpaio is, to put it mildly, controversial. He was recently pardoned by President Trump for contempt of court (the case related to racial profiling), he’s publicly questioned whether…

I have no idea whether President Trump enjoyed the holidays. But it looks like they may have helped his approval rating, at least temporarily.

We’re more than 11 months out from Election Day, and there are too many moving parts (changes in national environment, primary elections, possible retirements, fundraising, strategic decisions, and more) to know anything for certain.

Sen. Orrin Hatch announced Tuesday that he would retire at the end of his term. Hatch’s retirement is interesting from a political perspective—former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, one of President Trump’s most vocal opponents within his party—may end up in the Senate. But it’s less…

As far as elections go, 2017 wasn’t a good year for Republicans. Democrats won gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, frequently outperformed their baselines in special elections across the country and won a senate seat in Alabama—arguably the most GOP-friendly state in the country.

For the last five weeks, most of the political world has been (rightly) focused on the wild race for the Alabama Senate seat that l Jeff Sessions vacated earlier this year to become attorney general. But other key races didn’t stop while Democratic senator-elect Doug Jones was beating…

Last night, a Democratic candidate won a Senate seat in deep red Alabama.

Tonight, Alabamians will cast their ballots in what’s probably the most consequential election of the year for national politics. Republican Roy Moore and Democratic candidate Doug Jones are in a tight race for the Senate seat currently held by Luther Strange (who was appointed to replace Attorney…

A Fox News poll released on Monday shows Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones ahead of Republican Roy Moore by 10 points. That’s different from what other polls are showing—the RealClearPolitics average has Moore up by 2.5 points, with polls ranging from Fox’s 10-point lead for Jones to a 9-point…

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken announced Thursday morning that he would resign from the Senate amid allegations that he forcibly kissed or groped several different women. Franken’s resignation would trigger a special election for the seat in the 2018 midterms and allow Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton to…

About three in ten Republicans want someone other than Donald Trump to be their party’s presidential nominee in 2020 according to the Public Religion Research Institute. It’s easy to see how that number could make some Trump supporters nervous and some anti-Trump Republicans hopeful. If a third of…

Next Tuesday, we’ll finally know whether Republican Roy Moore or Democrat Doug Jones will become the next Senator from Alabama.

On Aug. 19, 2012, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill received one of the biggest gifts of her political career. While discussing abortion in the case of rape, her Republican opponent Todd Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Almost…

The Alabama special Senate Election is a bit of a rollercoaster. Republican Roy Moore held a real lead over Democrat Doug Jones for most of the race—until the Washington Post and other outlets published credible allegations that Moore had inappropriate sexual contact with teenagers while he was in…

Independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is in the lead for the Democratic nomination according to a new ranking by the Hill. Last week, Hill reporters interviewed Democratic insiders and reported that although no candidate is clearing the field, Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden,…

On November 7, Democratic lieutenant governor Ralph Northam became the governor-elect of Virginia, beating Republican Ed Gillespie by a nine point margin. Two days later, the political world shifted almost all its focus to Alabama. Various news outlets have now reported that while Republican…

If you had told me last year that there was going to be a competitive Senate election in Alabama before 2017 was over, I would have probably smiled politely and slowly backed away. The idea of a close Senate race in the Yellowhammer state should be absurd. Trump won the state by 28 points,…

Will Republicans hold the Senate in 2018?

News about the Alabama Senate race is moving fast. Less than a week ago, most election watchers were still focused on off-year elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Maine and other states. But on Thursday, the Washington Post published accounts of four different women who, as teenagers, were…

Are Republicans going to lose the House in 2018? And if they do, will it be President Trump’s fault?

Last night, Democrats scored some significant wins in Virginia’s House of Delegates. Some of the best handicappers said that Democratic control of the chamber was highly unlikely, but once every race is called, Democrats may end up taking the chamber.

Democrats won handily on Tuesday. They took the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, held the governorship in Virginia and scored important victories in down-ballot races. So what should election watchers take away from these results?

Virginia and New Jersey—two states with a combined population of about 17 million—are voting today in the largest American elections since November 2016. Both states are choosing new governors and electing numerous state and local officials. So it’s worth asking: Who’s going to win? And what do…

Election wonks don’t play favorites with polls. We love them all equally. (Translation: We do our best to judge them impartially based on their past accuracy, methodology, question wording, context and other relevant factors.) But it’s hard not to have a soft spot for surveys that offer something…

“How will [insert bizarre news events from the past week] change Trump’s approval rating?”

In the Virginia governor’s race, Democrat Ralph Northam is leading Republican Ed Gillespie by 17 points, according to a newly released Quinnipiac poll. The survey shows 53 percent of likely voters backing Northam and only 36 percent supporting Gillespie. But last week, a Hampton poll showed…

Next week, a populous, diverse, and politically interesting state is going to elect a new governor.

Last week, Monmouth University published a poll showing Republican Ed Gillespie ahead of Democrat Ralph Northam by one point in the race for Virginia’s governorship. This poll shocked some political observers—some had likely looked at Virginia’s recent results on the presidential level and…

Arizona senator Jeff Flake announced Tuesday that he would not seek re-election to the Senate in 2018. When an incumbent senator decides not to run again, it’s usually easy to gauge the electoral consequences—sitting senators usually perform better than non-incumbents, so if a senator retires in a…