Midterm elections polls 2018: Who is leading midterms? Who will take majority in Senate?

The Senate race has been hotting up as the US prepares to vote in a new Congress, with Donald Trump pulling out the stops to keep a Republican majority in power.

A total of 470 spaces in the US Congress are up for election, as the entire 435-strong House of Representatives is to be replaced.

In the Senate, 35 places are up for grabs as a third of the 100-member chambers are also to be replaced.

Both chambers are in for very different results according to recent polls, with the Senate race all but decided as voting approaches.

The fight for Congress has been raging for some time, with a total of 470 seats to be replaced in Congress, neither the Democrats nor Republicans are prepared to lose footing.

At the moment, there is a Republican majority stationed in both the Senate and House of Representative chambers, and Democrats are furiously trying to prevent this majority growing.

A victory for the Democrats over the incumbent Republican majority could make life harder for Donald Trump, who may find it more difficult to pass bills through Congress.

However if Republicans were able to gain more ground, the process of passing bills through Congress could be expedited for the President.

The only way to understand who could win Congress at the moment is via polling.

While polls cannot provide a concrete prediction for who will gain control of Congress, they can forecast political leanings among key voting groups.

Who is leading in the US Midterms elections?

A recent poll from market research company Ipsos looked at a sample size of 3,867 voting age (18+) Americans.

Each participant was interviewed online about their political leanings in the run up to the elections, and a sample of 2,062 were planning to vote.

They were asked: “Thinking about the elections in 2018, if the election for U.S. Congress were held today, would you vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate in your district where you live?.”

In total, 40 percent of all adults involved in the survey stated they would vote for Democratic candidates, and 32 percent were planning to vote for Republican candidates.

A small four percent of people questioned said they were planning to vote for a candidate from another political party.

The outlying 24 percent consisted of 13 percent saying they will not or do not plan to vote, and a further 11 percent which don’t know or refuse to answer.

Political attitude in the US therefore seems pointed towards a Democrat victory during the midterms, but small outliers mean this could change in the few weeks running up to the November 6 crunch date.

Who will take the majority in the US Senate?

The Senate race could be easier to call than the House of Representatives, as only a third of the Republican-controlled chamber is up for reelection.

This means the current situation is unlikely to be upset, unless Democrats were able to cobble together a staggering number of votes in the coming weeks.

According to pollsters FiveThirtyEight – which draws data from a collection of different polls to gather an understanding of possible outcomes – the Senate will remain under majority control from the Republicans.

The forecast predicts an 82.8 percent chance the Republicans will keep the senate, gaining an average of four seats.

For the Democrats, there is only a 17.2 percent chance of flipping the Senate, but there is a possibility of gaining at least two seats.