# “2026 US Midterms Forecasting Experiment.”

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**Created:** [October 18, 2026, 8:59am UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2F2026-us-midterms-forecasting-experiment%2F190727 "2026-10-18T08:59:52Z")\
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**Author:** ![Harry430](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c0e974/32.png) [@Harry430](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Fu%2FHarry430)%5C
**Post date:** [October 20, 2026, 2:28pm UTC](/static-proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.huggingface.co%2Ft%2F2026-us-midterms-forecasting-experiment%2F190727%2F15 "2026-10-20T14:28:19Z")

</div>

## 2026 U.S. Midterm AI Forecasting Race List — v1.0

Here is a proposed fixed race set for the AI-only comparison: all 35 Senate contests and a stratified sample of 50 House districts (10 from each of five competitiveness tiers). The ratings are used only to create a varied House sample; they are not the experiment’s forecasts. The list does not select candidates or predict winners.

Importable JSON (one record per race):

```json
{
  "title": "2026 U.S. Midterm AI Forecasting Race List",
  "version": "1.0",
  "election_date": "2026-11-03",
  "snapshot_date": "2026-10-16",
  "race_counts": {
    "senate": 35,
    "house_sample": 50,
    "total": 85
  },
  "house_sampling": {
    "design": "stratified exploratory sample; 10 districts from each of five Cook rating tiers",
    "ratings_source": "Cook Political Report ratings reproduced by 270toWin; page marked as of 2026-10-16 (map updated 2026-10-19)",
    "seed": "2026-10-20|hf-midterms-v1",
    "selection_rule": "Within each tier, sort the source-listed district IDs by ascending unsigned 32-bit FNV-1a hash of the UTF-8 string '<seed>|<district_id>'; select the first 10. District IDs use unpadded numbers (for example, IN-1).",
    "tiers": {
      "likely_democratic": 10,
      "lean_democratic": 10,
      "toss_up": 10,
      "lean_republican": 10,
      "likely_republican": 10
    }
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "name": "USPS Postal Bulletin 22694 — Key Elections",
      "url": "https://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2026/pb22694/html/cover_004.htm"
    },
    {
      "name": "USAGov — Midterm elections",
      "url": "https://www.app.cloud.gov/midterm-elections"
    },
    {
      "name": "270toWin — Cook Political Report 2026 House Ratings",
      "url": "https://www.270towin.com/2026-house-election/table/cook-political-report-2026-house-ratings/"
    }
  ],
  "schema": {
    "race_id": "unique identifier",
    "office": "U.S. Senate or U.S. House",
    "state": "two-letter state code",
    "district": "null for Senate; district code for House (AL denotes at-large)",
    "selection_stratum": "inclusion rule or rating tier; ratings are selection strata, not this experiment's forecasts"
  },
  "races": [
    {
      "race_id": "AL-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "AL",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "AK-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "AK",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "AR-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "AR",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "CO-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "CO",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "DE-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "DE",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "GA-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "GA",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "ID-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "ID",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "IL-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "IL",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "IA-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "IA",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "KS-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "KS",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "KY-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "KY",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "LA-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "LA",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "ME-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "ME",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MA-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "MA",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MI-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "MI",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MN-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "MN",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MS-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "MS",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MT-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "MT",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NE-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "NE",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NH-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "NH",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NJ-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "NJ",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NM-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "NM",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NC-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "NC",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "OH-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "OH",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "OK-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "OK",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "OR-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "OR",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "RI-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "RI",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "SC-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "SC",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "SD-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "SD",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "TN-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "TN",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "TX-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "TX",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "VA-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "VA",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "WV-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "WV",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "WY-SEN-2026",
      "office": "U.S. Senate",
      "state": "WY",
      "district": null,
      "selection_stratum": "all_2026_senate_contests"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NE-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NE",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "OH-13-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "OH",
      "district": "13",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NV-4-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NV",
      "district": "4",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NV-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NV",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NV-3-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NV",
      "district": "3",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "IN-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "IN",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NJ-9-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NJ",
      "district": "9",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "VA-7-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "VA",
      "district": "7",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NH-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NH",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MN-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "MN",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "IA-3-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "IA",
      "district": "3",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "IA-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "IA",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NM-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NM",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-25-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "25",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "CA-13-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "CA",
      "district": "13",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "TX-28-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "TX",
      "district": "28",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "PA-7-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "PA",
      "district": "7",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NJ-7-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NJ",
      "district": "7",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "AZ-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "AZ",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "PA-10-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "PA",
      "district": "10",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_democratic"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NC-11-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NC",
      "district": "11",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "IA-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "IA",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-22-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "22",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MT-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "MT",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-14-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "14",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NC-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NC",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "PA-8-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "PA",
      "district": "8",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MI-10-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "MI",
      "district": "10",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "CO-8-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "CO",
      "district": "8",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "VA-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "VA",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "toss_up"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "OH-15-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "OH",
      "district": "15",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "OH-10-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "OH",
      "district": "10",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-27-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "27",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-13-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "13",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "KY-6-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "KY",
      "district": "6",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "PA-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "PA",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "CO-5-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "CO",
      "district": "5",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "ME-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "ME",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NY-21-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NY",
      "district": "21",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MN-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "MN",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "lean_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "AK-AL-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "AK",
      "district": "AL",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "KS-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "KS",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NE-1-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NE",
      "district": "1",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "TX-9-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "TX",
      "district": "9",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-16-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "16",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "MO-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "MO",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "TX-23-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "TX",
      "district": "23",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-9-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "9",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "FL-7-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "FL",
      "district": "7",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    },
    {
      "race_id": "NV-2-HOUSE-2026",
      "office": "U.S. House",
      "state": "NV",
      "district": "2",
      "selection_stratum": "likely_republican"
    }
  ]
}

```

The House sample is exploratory rather than statistically representative of all 435 districts. The dated ratings snapshot and deterministic seed are recorded in the JSON so the selection can be audited. If the group agrees on a different set, we can publish a versioned revision before forecasts are collected. No race should be added or removed after forecasts begin without documenting that change.

---

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