Bringing the House down: our American midterms model
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We examine what our forecast model predicts so far—and consider what might change its confident prediction for one house of Congress and toss-up call for the other. Our correspondent sits down with Steve Reich, a pioneering classical composer who is nearing his 90th birthday. And the surprising reason why firstborns tend to have more-successful lives.
Additional music courtesy of Steve Reich (Nonesuch Records), Erik Hall (Western Vinyl)
Guests and host:
- Dan Rosenheck, data editor
- Jon Fasman, senior culture correspondent
- Ainslie Johnstone, data journalist
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”
Topics covered:
- American elections, Congress, polling, gerrymandering
- Steve Reich, contemporary classical music
- birth order, statistics
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:10.3 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:13.3 | I'm your host, Jason Palmer. |
| 0:15.1 | Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:23.6 | Thank you. fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Describing Steve Reich as a contemporary classical composer just leaves too much unsaid. |
| 0:31.6 | He's been pioneering a singular kind of classical music since the 1960s, |
| 0:36.6 | and as his 90th birthday approaches, our correspondent sits down with him. |
| 0:43.1 | And middle children, youngest children, cover your ears. |
| 0:47.0 | We dig into the data that suggests why it is that statistically eldest siblings do better in life. |
| 0:57.0 | Thank you. statistically, eldest siblings do better in life. First up, though. |
| 1:07.0 | Here are some things you've been able to count on in American midterm elections since long before Donald Trump started to sewed out in the whole process. |
| 1:19.5 | One, attempts will be made to fiddle the maps laying out which district a particular place falls into. |
| 1:25.5 | By convention, this is redistricting when it isn't obviously |
| 1:28.7 | unfair and gerrymandering when it is. Two, there aren't actually that many competitive districts, |
| 1:35.2 | so the overall control of the two houses of Congress hangs on a small number of races. |
| 1:40.3 | Three, anyone trying to start up a third party will get thumped. |
| 1:44.4 | Four, the president's party loses the lower chamber, the House of Representatives. |
| 1:49.1 | Really, it's odd how consistent that trend has been. |
| 1:52.6 | And for all the norm breaking of Trump, too, it's pretty certain to happen again. |
| 1:57.4 | The economy's new model forecasting America's congressional elections gives the Democrats a whopping 98% chance of taking back the House of Representatives. |
| 2:09.3 | Dan Rosenheck is our data editor. |
| 2:11.6 | And an impressively high 48% chance of winning the Senate as well. |
... |
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