CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten shared both good and bad news for Democrats on Friday: Current polling suggests they will take control of the U.S. Senate in the upcoming midterm elections — but one “big siren warning sign” suggests they could fail.
“The Senate is the one where we are going to be focusing our attention on election night, for the most part, unless there’s a big surprise in the House of Representatives,” Enten said Friday. “And I want you to take a look at the Senate polling margins right here.”
The data guru then showed “News Central” host Sara Sidner his latest “Enten’s Aggregate” of polling numbers, which have Democratic Senate candidates ahead in key swing states such as Iowa, Texas, Michigan and Ohio — and at least tied in Kansas.
“What the polling shows right now, the Democrats would in fact take control of the United States Senate,” Enten said. “The question is, are the results on election night going to match what the polling shows right now?
When asked about the margin of error concerning these Senate races, Enten warned that “polls are a tool” — and that his aggregated data for each state in reference has an “average error rate” of 3.7 percentage points and only comprises sentiments from the past 21 days.
“When you have all of these close races, you have to keep this in mind,” he told Sidner. “Those races, most of those races on the last screen are well within that average error rate. And that is why the Senate, at this point, is too close to call if these poll averages hold.”
He added, “And this, to me, is the big siren warning sign for Democrats right here. Because I know you feel like it’s Lucy and the football: You’ve seen yourselves ahead before, and then Election Day, the votes are cast and counted and the Republicans come out ahead.”
While President Donald Trump has shifted the focus of the midterms to himself in the face of disastrous approval ratings, Enten noted Republicans could still outperform expectations — and even “easily maintain control” of the House in addition to the Senate.
“We have a few weeks left to go in this campaign; the polling has been tight,” said Enten. “If Democrats are able to get the polls to match results, hey, they get a majority, but I think we’ve seen the story a little bit before. And that is why this Senate map is still way too close to call.”
Enten then reiterated, “Republicans, very much in the ballgame.”