Democrats are on the verge of winning 222 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections, according to a new poll that increased their odds of flipping power in the lower chamber.
The CBS News and YouGov poll, released Sunday, shows an uptick from its prediction of 219 seats when the survey was last conducted in June, signaling that Democratic candidates could be creating momentum before the Nov. 6 contests.
But the results have a range of plus or minus 11 seats, which means Republicans could still control the House after the midterm cycle if they can secure majority support in 218 congressional districts.
There are 435 total seats, and Democrats winning 222 of them would give them a nine-seat advantage over Republicans.
In 57 key House races, Republicans are still the candidate of choice for eight in 10 voters who cast a ballot for President Trump in 2016, per the poll. In comparison, nine in 10 voters who backed his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton would still prefer being represented by a Democrat.
CBS News and YouGov’s study comes as RealClearPolitics’ congressional generic ballot aggregator found that Democrats held a 6.8 percentage point advantage if the midterm elections were held on Aug. 17.
The battleground poll was conducted among 4,989 registered voters in 57 competitive districts around the country from Aug. 10-16. The research has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.
