ND-SEN: But you are, Blanche, you are

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Remember that 538 also factors what it calls "fundamentals" into its election forecasts, and in this case, the fundamentals favor the Democrats. Thus, by combining the polls and fundamentals, it currently considers this race as Tilt D as opposed to Tilt/Lean R (if only polls were considered).

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Here's another reminder from the past about this particular seat: back in 2012, during the final week before Election Day, two of four major election prediction outlets had given the Republican candidate a slight advantage (Tilt or Lean R). The actual result went the other way.

I'd revisit this race in late October/early November to get a better picture of who's actually on track to win - there's still plenty of time for the lead to change hands.

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Surprise surprise, partisan SCOTUS gonna partisan.

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1049821777650769920

https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/1049754018032041986

Pack the court, create new states. Perhaps in North Dakota, each Reservation can secede and form its own state in a few years, and then Heitkamp can carpetbag there to get elected.

Well, at least this particular SC decision didn't involve the new justice, and wasn't entirely split on partisan lines...

Additionally, reports indicate that Heitkamp was already struggling with Native American voters due to her inaction on the Dakota Access Pipeline issue.

At this point, I'm still waiting for additional polling later this month/early next month, but I would be pleasantly surprised if such polls indicate Heitkamp closing the gap...

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How to Blow a Winnable Race 101

Hopefully you’re talking about Cramer since this race was never winnable for any Democrat. There’s no D base here. Remember the good old days of Likely D ND because of retail politics? LOL, good times

If Heitkamp loses, she’ll have no one to blame but herself. This race was definitely winnable for her, especially in a Democratic wave year.

Heitkamp was going to lose even before any of this. If ND wasn't a 27% Clinton state, Cramer's support for Kavanaugh and his comments about "even if it was true" and "strong women don't get raped" would have sunk him long ago.

That line of thinking would also imply that Manchin would be doomed as well, as his home state gave Clinton only 26% of the vote.

No, I think the main reason Heitkamp is in trouble is that she has been running a rather lukewarm campaign (compared to someone like Richard Ojeda in WV-3, who has come out swinging and maintained that posture).

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An incumbent down by 4 to 12% in a state where the natural bias is not in her favor..

She is at 42% in the RCP average....    Stick a fork in her.... she's done.

Using your logic, Rick Berg should have beaten her in 2012.

A more accurate statement about her present status should be that she's down but not out.

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LOL at the delusion. Im pretty optimistic about the democrats this year but seriously. Heitkamp is finished. Why are you wasting your time pinning your hopes on someone who only votes with the party half the time and is basically republican-lite? If you want any chance of controlling the senate, put your focus into TX. Beto is polling the best and is an actual democrat. Come on Zaybay!

What? I never said she was gonna win. Just pointed out methodology flaws in the 3 state polls we have so far, and how varied it has varied from 60% Rs, to 49%Rs(which is higher than 2016, BTW, it was 47%R), among other groups. Besides, we dont need to "Focus our energy" on one state, be it TN, MS, TX, or ND, because the Ds are rather well funded, and can focus on literally all of them, as they are now.

As I said before, and I will say it again, she is not favored, but she is also not DOA.

Agreed. In fact, just a few days ago 538 published an article stating that there is overpolling in some races and underpolling in others. It gives this ND race as one of their "underpolled" races, which means that they think there should be more high quality polling here in order to forecast the outcome with greater certainty (at this point, they think Heitkamp has at least a 30% chance of winning according to their classic & deluxe models, which, although low, does mean that we should not be terribly surprised if she does end up winning).

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Remember that 538 gives ND the highest voter power index (likelihood of individual voters swinging the race) among all Senate elections this year, so on that basis, it is still a worthwhile investment for the Democrats despite their recent atrocious polling numbers here.