comfortable lead

Republicans on track to win 230 House seats, CBS model predicts

Republicans are on track to win a clear majority of 230 seats in the House of Representatives this November, according to the CBS News Battleground Tracker model released Sunday.

The Battleground Tracker takes "a district-by-district approach to analyzing races and measuring public opinion, since control of Congress is won across hundreds of individual elections, not by national popular vote," CBS explains.

Some Democrats have expressed hope that the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) and ending the constitutional right to an abortion could steal some of the GOP's momentum, but it seems as though high inflation and the normal rhythm of election cycles are handicaps too large for Democrats to overcome.

The predicted net gain of 19 seats for Republicans is far higher than the 7 additional seats the GOP needs to secure a majority. Democrats — who currently hold 220 seats — can only afford a net loss of two.

The model has an error margin of 12 seats, meaning that Republicans are projected to win between 218 and 242 seats. Even on the low end of that range, Republicans would still emerge from the midterms with control of the House.

This range tracks with the 235 seats Democrats won in the 2018 midterms and falls short, even on the high end, of the massive red wave of 2014, when Republicans won 247 seats.