please check your voter registration very soon, and then at the beginning of October and November as well.

better to resolve in advance than when you come home from work at 6pm on Election Day.

I live in Florida. I voted yesterday in the primary with 7 more days to Election Day. I figure if a trick is done, I still have time to recover. I saw people pulling democratic and republican ballots yesterday and there was a steady stream of people around my entrance and exit. I doubt that the Florida legislature will get away with trying to restrict early voting more, a lot of republican voters seem to like it too.

Nate Silver has adjusted the odds to 5 in 7 instead of the original 3 in 4. The past two days the ticker has dropped from 75.3% chance to take the House to 73.2%. The average number of seats gained dropped from 35 to 34.

No big deal but I believe it is the correct move. As a gambler I would have no trouble at all taking +300 odds on the GOP retaining the House, and I'd certainly take +35 seats on an even money bet, for a very high amount. It shouldn't be that obvious this far out. I think the model was a bit optimistic. Other sites like Predictwise have it at 64%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/

But damn, its hard not to get discouraged that so much of a swath of the US is 'solid red', even AFTER a year and a half of the orange baffoon in office.

Now we should know better.

I'll take that every time, regardless of past history. Line up as the favorite and allow the percentages to play out.

Just understand what 71% means. That was almost exactly Hillary's number on election day, and too many people trusted it as certainty. As I posted at the time, it is the money line equivalent to a 4.5 point favorite in an NFL game. Those teams lose all the time and nobody makes a peep.

Nate was high at 75% and especially at average seats gained at 35. That was my instinct when his model went up last week. I posted on many sites that both numbers seemed out of whack with actual likelihood. Now down to 71% and 33 seats.

I would expect that 33 seat number to drop closer to 30 or 29. Nobody should panic. Those numbers would jive with the 64% House number that is the norm elsewhere.

I'm impressed they published this. I've been very surprised at the 538 model with the average projected Democratic gain between 33 and 35 seats. Let's hope they are correct. As mentioned in this article, the other sources are in the 23 to 29 range. And that range is more in line with the models that have Democratic control listed as 64% likely and not the 71-75% from 538.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-how-our-house-forecast-compares-with-the-experts-ratings/

"But since this is our first Election Update, today I want to focus on the bigger picture. Our model joins the political discourse as only one of many predictors of the fall’s elections, and three of the most respected election handicappers are our friends over at the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Historically, their race ratings have a strong record of accuracy — so much so that we have a whole iteration of our forecast, the “Deluxe” version, that exists solely to incorporate their ratings..."

<snip>

"But there are also some differences. For example, FiveThirtyEight’s forecast is a tad more bullish on Democrats’ chances overall than the three major handicappers. If you assign probabilities to their race ratings,2 Cook’s and Sabato’s ratings both imply a Democratic gain of 29 seats, while Inside Elections’s compute out to a Democratic gain of 23. (Our forecast, remember, currently projects an average Democratic gain of 34 seats.)"

That is very interesting because some sources have estimated the requirement at anywhere from +7 to +12.

The 538 notation is on one of the charts themselves, the one titled, "How the popular vote for the House translates into seats":
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/?ex_cid=rrpromo

"Democrats are favored to win a majority of seats if they win the popular vote by at least 5.3 points"

I put my bet on him.