About

What this is

• A forecast: for every race, each side’s chance and the expected margin, and what they add up to in each chamber.
• Every poll the forecast found, with how much it counts or why it does not.
• Brackets: pick the winners, play your friends, and score as the races are called.

What it covers

Every Senate, House and governor race on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Not primaries, ballot measures or state legislatures.

How it is built

Each race combines two estimates: one from how the state or district votes and the national mood, and one from the race’s own polls; the more polls a race has, the more they count. Thousands of simulated elections, with races moving together as real ones do, turn the races into chances for each chamber. How the forecast works

What it holds itself to

• Both parties at equal weight. Each party’s numbers get the same place on every page, and a lead is named by who leads.
• The evidence on the page. Every poll, its weight or the reason it is not used, and the method in full with its fitted numbers.
• Its limits in plain words. What it does not know, the checks it does not pass, and how often its ranges held on past elections. Limits
• Markets as a check, not an input. Betting prices sit beside the forecast, never inside it.
• No hand-typed numbers. Every figure comes from a cited source through the same pipeline.

How to read it

A 70% chance is not a call that the leader wins: the trailing side wins about three times in ten. A rating says how likely the leader is to win: Toss-up under 65%, Lean 65–80%, Likely 80–95%, Solid 95% or more. Reading the forecast

Who makes it

CloseCall is an independent, personal project, built and run by one person.

No one pays for it: no advertisers, sponsors or investors, and no money from any candidate, campaign, party, PAC or prediction market. Its maker holds no role in any party or campaign, and the site is not affiliated with, authorized by or paid for by any of them.