CBS News on Sunday lowered its projection of a Republican House majority after the midterms as Democrats see glimmers of hope to salvage their standing in November’s elections.
The network’s model, managed alongside YouGov, continues to predict Republicans will flip Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House, but CBS now estimates Republicans will win 223 seats, down from 226 in August and 230 in July.
The sitting president’s party typically loses seats in the midterm elections, a stark reality for Democrats, who barely hold a majority with 221 seats. Either party needs to win a total of 218 seats to take the House majority.
Republicans have long been predicted to retake the House in the midterms, an expectation that grew as inflation rose to a 40-year high and President Biden’s approval rating ticked down.
But now, Democrats are hoping they can avoid a shellacking in November by shifting the focus to a string of legislative victories and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn federal abortion protections in June.
CBS News on Sunday also released a new poll that provides the latest suggestion the justices’ ruling is helping Democrats’ chances.
Forty-one percent of respondents said women will have fewer rights and freedoms if Republicans control Congress, more than double the 18 percent who said women will have more rights and freedoms.
The poll also found that 71 percent of women surveyed said a candidate must agree with them on abortion to get their vote. Fewer women said they agreed with similar statements on the economy and immigration, two hot-button areas that Republicans are hoping to capitalize on during the campaign season.
CBS News’s latest model is in line with other analysts, who generally suggest that Democrats’ standing has improved in recent months.
FiveThirtyEight’s model as of Sunday indicates Republicans have a 68 percent chance of winning the House majority, a percentage that reached nearly 90 percent in the days before the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling.