US midterm elections 2018: Top data cruncher bullish on Democrats' edge, gives party 3 in 4 chance of taking House majority

America’s best known data cruncher on elections Nate Silver is bullish on Democrats winning the House at the midterm elections 2018 even as US President Donald Trump plans to embark on an aggressive campaign schedule this fall to boost Republican candidates on the ballot in 2018. The current House, which is Republican controlled, has 235 GOP members, 193 Democrats and 7 vacancies. The current Senate has 49 Democrats and 51 Republicans. The data journalism team at FiveThirtyEight.com has published its projections for all U.S. House races and the overall race for House majority in the upcoming midterms. [caption id=“attachment_4505445” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Donald Trump. AP[/caption] FiveThirtyEight is giving Democrats a 3 in 4 chance of winning enough seats for a majority and it comes with a big caveat: “Relatively small shifts could allow Republicans to keep control of the House, or could turn a blue wave into a tsunami.” Nate Silver’s team has put out three versions of the forecast - Lite, Classic and generic - each of which has slightly different ingredients. The entire model calculates based historical trends in midterms since 1946 and presidential approval ratings. The Real Clear Politics House map puts 42 seats in the toss-up category. There too, Democrats hold the slightest edge of ending up ahead but the majority will come for either side from taking home the toss up seats. Average of generic polls show Democrats slightly behind in the Senate races not including 7 seats listed as toss ups. Both parties believe that Donald Trump hitting the campaign trail bodes well for voter turnout. In Senate races, Republicans are hoping the economic uptick and Trump’s tough immigration stance will help them to flip a handful of the 26 Democratic seats up for election this cycle and boost their narrow majority. The Republicans currently enjoy a razor thin majority in the Senate: 51-49. Democrats are leaning on historical trends in the midterms and Trump’s net-negative approval rating may help flip some of the nine Republican-held seats so they can gain control of the Senate. In other midterm news, the US states will spend $ 380 m on election security systems before November, using millions of dollars from the federal government to tighten cybersecurity, and safeguard their voter registration rolls. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission released a report this showing how states plan to spend $380 million allocated by Congress last spring to strengthen voting systems amid ongoing threats from Russia. This just in: Donald Trump is preparing to embark on an aggressive campaign schedule this fall to boost Republican candidates on the ballot in 2018. Trump is aiming to spend more than 40 days on the campaign trail between Labor Day and the 6 November midterm elections, as he hopes to best his predecessors’ travel schedules. White House officials speaking on background said Trump wants to be on the road for Republicans more than President Barack Obama was for Democrats in 2010 — when his party suffered what Obama called a “shellacking” — and beyond what President George W. Bush did in 2002.