The door has shut on any chance of Democrats taking back the House

We’re holding at 272 “hard” Safe or Likely electoral votes for Clinton, and an additional 21 electoral votes leaning to her (Nevada and North Carolina). Trump is now at 214, better than Romney’s 2012 total of 206, but also without a clear path to add the 56 additional electoral votes he needs to get to 270. Again, even adding Florida, the two Toss-up House districts, and Leans Democratic North Carolina and Nevada would only get him to 266.

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We also have one major change to our Senate ratings. We’re pushing one of our Toss-ups, Pennsylvania, to Leans Democratic. Katie McGinty (D), Gov. Tom Wolf’s (D) former chief of staff, now appears to lead Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in Pennsylvania. Several recent polls show McGinty running roughly even with Clinton in Pennsylvania, a very good sign for her in the late going. The geographic pattern of the McGinty/Toomey vote versus the Clinton/Trump contest might be interesting: Toomey should be able to do better in Greater Philadelphia than Trump, who is very unpopular there, but McGinty may run a little bit ahead of Clinton in more blue collar parts of the state that are traditionally Democratic but where Trump may improve on typical Republican performance. Still, if this is turning into a coattail race, Toomey finds himself in a tough spot.

Finally, a quick word on the House: While Clinton still looks OK in the presidential race, it appears that the door has finally and completely been shut on the prospects for a Democratic House majority. Clinton just does not appear capable of providing the lift required to put Democrats in range of a 30-seat net gain, and House generic polling averages don’t indicate a wave is coming in the lower chamber. There are all sorts of reasons for that, one of which is the power of incumbency, as Alan Abramowitz demonstrates in a companion Crystal Ball piece this week.

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