If the polls are wrong…
Rational Ground ● 2026 Senate
◀ Republicans beat their pollsDemocrats beat their polls ▶
Polls right
Every animal is one Senate seat. The 65 seats not on the ballot this year ride at the two ends, a little faded: 34 in the Democratic caucus and 31 Republican. The 35 races on the ballot fill the middle, closest races by the mast.
The slider is a polling miss: it adds the same number of points to every race's forecast margin at once, the way a nationwide miss moves every race together. The marks are the average misses of polls in the last two weeks of past elections, across every race. When a race's likely winner changes, its animal changes, and the seat floats out as a buoy. The boat leans toward the side with more seats, and the bigger the miss, the rougher the sea.
The odds on the sail come from rerunning the forecast's simulated elections at each miss. A 50–50 Senate goes to Republicans, because Vice President Vance breaks ties.