pollster.com's predictions for:
control of the Senate
control of the House
You won't be using these files directly, but for background, here
is the raw data I am currently using. I trust that it is reasonably
accurate, but I have no way of knowing so. I'll try to find a second
source.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Data/house_polls.csv
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Data/sen_polls.csv
File format for the above two files: 1. midpoint day of poll (1/1/2006 = 1.0), 2. length of poll in days, 3. state-district, 5. Democrat percent, 6. Republican percent, 16. polling organization.
These are the main poll data files we will be analyzing. See the
beginning of each file for contents.
house_polls.dat
sen_polls.dat
Details on the house races: For the house, we will focus on
the following 50 "hot" house races:
50 hot house races from www.electoral-vote.com
In the remaining 385 districts, the Democrats are presumed to win 196 seats and the Republicans 189. These numbers are obtained as follows: (i) if there is an incumbent, assume the incumbent wins, (ii) otherwise, assume the party that won in the last election wins.
For reference, here is a file listing the house incuments: House incumbent parties
Here is a file listing the districts for which there in no incumbent, and that are not one of the 50 "hot races." These are assigned based on the previous election's winner: House districts with no incumbent
There are two special cases: LA-03 is listed as a hot race, but
there is no polling data. This is New Orleans, and since many voters
are still living out of the district, there are susbtantial
difficulties with carrying out a poll. TX-23 is also listed as a hot
race, and again there is no polling data. TX-23 is actually having a
primary between 6 Democrats and one Republican. If the Republican
doesn't get 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff. For both of
these districts, we will add one fake poll with a 50/50 split and
large ME.
Details on the senate races: Senate incumbents There are 67 Senate incumbents (27 Democrats and 40 Republicans) and elections are being held for 33 seats. The Democrats need to win 24 of the 33 seats to have a majority, 23 to tie.