While 538’s predictions for the U.S. House of Representatives and White House today are pure bad decisions, the race for control of the U.S. Senate is nowhere near as exciting. To start, our forecast gives the Republicans one XXX out of 100 Chance of winning a majority (including cases where the Senate is split 50-50 but Trump wins the presidency, so a Vice President JD Vance would be the tie-breaking vote in the Senate). The chance that the Democrats will retain their majority – slim, but significantly non-zero – is XXX out of 100 In our model’s simulations of how the election might go, this is slightly lower than the chance of rolling a die and getting a one.

There are currently 51 senators meeting with Senate Democrats, but with the resignation of recently independent Joe Manchin in crimson West Virginia, they are virtually certain to lose one. That leaves them at 50:50 – before moving on to their other challenges. Democrats are also defending seats in Ohio (currently a conflict in our forecast) and Montana (likely Republicans), and there’s a chance they could also lose seats in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, their only real opportunities to catch up are in Texas and Florida, where Republican incumbents are currently leading the polls by around 5 percentage points each.

In other words, to win, Democrats must win not just in the polls, but also in red states. There’s a chance they can do that, but the rate is low and declining throughout the cycle.

-G. Elliott Morris