First 2024 forecast from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ projects GOP has edge for President and U.S. Senate, closer call for U.S. House

May 30, 2024 (Washington D.C.) – The Hill and leading election results provider Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) today released DDHQ’s first forecast for the 2024 races for President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives – and the initial projection is that the GOP has the edge in all three contests.

According to DDHQ’s debut weekly forecast:                                                                                               

• Former President Donald Trump has a 57% chance to win the White House. Leaving aside battleground states that are currently too close to call, Trump currently is leading President Joe Biden in enough states to put him ahead by nine electoral votes—235 to 226.                                         
• Republicans have a 77% chance to flip the Senate. Even without winning any toss-up states, Republicans currently are projected to win enough races to give them a majority of 51 seats in the U.S. Senate.
• Republicans are currently favored, though narrowly, to win 10 of DDHQ’s current 17 toss-up races for the U.S. House.

The DDHQ Forecast is a quantitative model comprised of over 200 base features including economic indicators, measures of the political environment (both national and local), candidate traits, and campaign finance reports. Each model run is the product of 14,000,605 simulations. 

DDHQ will update its forecast weekly through Election Day. Peer-reviewed in the Harvard Data Science Review, DDHQ’s model had an accuracy rate of more than 90% across all Presidential battleground states in 2020 and all US Senate races and House races in both 2020 and 2022, accurately predicting the winning party for President, Senate and House.The Hill will make the forecast available to its audience on its 2024 Election Center, alongside interactive tools that let users create and share their own election scenarios and predictions for 2024, powered by DDHQ’s expansive collection of polls and historical data. 

“We’re excited to bring The Hill’s politics-savvy audience this latest way to engage through data in the all-important 2024 elections,” said Drew McCoy, President of Decision Desk HQ.  

The core of Election Center remains the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill Polling Average, delivering new rolling averages of surveys conducted in every 2024 race for Congress and the race for President. The Decision Desk HQ/The Hill Polling Average offers straightforward averages that represent all available polls in a race while being easy to interpret and not overly sensitive to news events. DDHQ has averaged polls since the 2018 election cycle with a methodology that prioritizes simplicity, accuracy and thoroughness.  

“We are very excited to extend our relationship with DDHQ and expand The Hill’s political coverage through unique and powerful data-driven product experiences like this one,” said Joe Ruffolo, Senior Vice President and General Manager of The Hill and NewsNation Digital. 

About The Hill

The Hill, a Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: NXST) property, is the nation’s leading digital-first political news brand and the definitive source for non-partisan political news and information. Inside the Beltway it’s known as an essential agenda-setting read for lawmakers and influencers. Beyond the Capitol, millions of Americans turn to The Hill to decode how events in Washington will impact their communities and lives.

About Decision Desk HQ 

Decision Desk HQ is a leading provider of real-time election results, race calls and related data, and the only provider to cover US elections from the presidency and Congress to the county and city level. Launched in 2012 on a hunch that we could use technology to improve the speed and lower the cost of collecting election returns, we were first to call the presidency for Donald Trump in 2016 and for Vice President Joe Biden in 2020. In 2022, we were first to call control of Congress and also covered 16,000 local races. We continue to innovate with new technologies to drive more efficient results reporting that prioritizes accuracy, supports local coverage, and strengthens trust in the democratic process. 

Media Contacts: 

Alex Rosenwald                                                                         Elizabeth Wilner
Senior Director of Communications                                       elizabeth@decisiondeskhq.com
arosenwald@digital-stage.thehill.com                                                          Decision Desk HQ
The Hill