2024 Elections Daily Senate Ratings: The Final Update

With our final House ratings out of the way, the next update on our list is the Senate. We have three ratings changes today in our final Senate Ratings update. We’re predicting Republicans will win control of the Senate, but with only a narrow majority.

Senate Ratings

• Nebraska: Safe Republican to Likely Republican
• Ohio: Tossup to Leans Democratic
• Texas: Likely Republican to Leans Republican

Our final Senate update features only three ratings changes. The first, and biggest, change is in Ohio, where we now expect Democrat Sherrod Brown to hold on for a fourth term. While polling has been slightly more favorable for Republican Bernie Moreno as of late, most credible polls still show Brown ahead. Excluding ActiVote, Moreno has led only three polls since September. He’s been outraised, outspent, and frankly just has not run a good campaign. And with the recent Iowa poll from Selzer showing a shock lead for Kamala Harris, we can’t dismiss the possibility that Democrats are broadly outperforming in the Rust Belt. We’re moving this to Leans Democratic.

In Texas, we still think incumbent Republican Ted Cruz is favored. He’s led in all but four polls in the entire campaign – but polling has narrowed to the point we can’t consider this a Likely race anymore. In the latest DDHQ/The Hill polling average, Cruz holds a three-point lead over Democrat Collin Allred. This is less than half the lead Trump has over Harris in the state, and it warrants moving the race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.

Finally, we’re reluctantly moving Nebraska’s regular Senate race from Safe Republican to Likely Republican out of an abundance of caution. Since our last update, we’ve had two nonpartisan polls – one from New York Times/Siena showing a two-point lead for Deb Fischer, and one from The Economist/YouGov showing a seven-point lead for Fischer. We’re skeptical this race ends up being that competitive – it has all the signs of a mirage race – but the nonpartisan polling here backs up the picture broadly presented by internal polling. Democratic-aligned Independent Dan Osborn is likely to outrun pretty much any Nebraska Democrat in recent memory; the question is just by how much.

Final Ratings

As a result of our final updates, we project Republicans will control 51 seats, compared to 49 for Democrats and Democratic-aligned independents. This ensures Republican control of the Senate regardless of the outcome of the Presidential race. In tandem with our House ratings – which favor Democrats to secure a three-seat majority – this means we expect control of Congress to effectively flip.

There is, however, still room for surprises. We have six states in the “Leans” column, and another four in the “Likely” column. An upset in any of these states would have drastic implications for the balance of power.