Nate Cohn of the New York Times finally acknowledged in a story this week that people shouldn’t completely write off the odds of the Democrats keeping the House.

By no means was it a ringing recommendation. The five seats required for the Republicans to retake control of the lower chamber remain in their favor. Democrats winning, though, “is a real possibility, not some abstraction in the sense that anything can happen,” Cohn continued.

The article’s admission that because there is so little polling data available, experts are essentially flying blind when it comes to the House is arguably the most important takeaway.

So, although not precisely a crap shoot, the House ratings are also the result of a lot of well-informed speculation. Forecasters are updating their projections as the election nears based on how the cycle is changing.

That forecast is getting better for Democrats. On Wednesday, seven out of ten rating revisions made by Cook Political favored Democrats.

NEW at @CookPolitical: 10 House rating changes, including seven in Dems’ direction and three in GOP’s direction. Full analysis: https://t.co/5dgUidrlfa pic.twitter.com/4v9JVzPxGT

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 5, 2022

The most recent modification in the direction of Democrats was only one of many over the past few months. Cook anticipated a GOP gain of 20 to 35 seats in July. The media outlet now characterizes the “likeliest outcome” as a Republican gain of 5 to 20 seats.

The good news is that. Sadly, Cook assesses 194 seats as lean/likely/solid Democratic and 211 seats as lean/likely/solid Republican. Accordingly, Republicans only need to win 7 of the 30 “toss up” seats for the majority, while Democrats need to win 24 to keep control of the House.

But once more, there isn’t a ton of polling behind those numbers.

While FiveThirtyEight.com favors Democrats to maintain the Senate and Republicans to take the House, there is a roughly six-in-10 possibility that one party will end up controlling both houses, which is another way to look at the situation.

Generally speaking, Democrats are still in the race in a cycle where they wouldn’t stand a chance historically. And even while several crucial Senate contests are becoming more competitive (mostly in districts held by the GOP), the overall situation for Democrats is still getting better.

According to both Civiqs tracking and FiveThirtyEight’s likely/registered voter aggregate, President Joe Biden’s job approval has reached its best peak in more than a year.

According to Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, Democrats have made gains in four out of the last five weekly tracking polls at FiveThirtyEight.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that included all adults (rather than just probable or registered voters), Democrats now have a 33%–32% advantage over Republicans.

The other four weekly tracking polls, on the other hand, showed a net shift in favor of Democrats during the past week.

• Economist/YouGov (LV): 46Ds-47Rs —>> 47Ds-46Rs; Net change: Dems +2
• Politico/Morning Consult (RV): 45Ds-43Rs —>> 46Ds-43Rs; Net change: Dems +1
• Morning Consult (LV): 48Ds-44Rs —>> 49Ds-44Rs, Dems +1
• Rasmussen/Pulse Opinion (LV): 42Ds-44Rs —>> 44Ds-45Rs; Net change: Dems +1

Democrats have also been more enthusiastic about voting than Republicans for a number of weeks.

NEW: Congressional Democrats are seeing their widest lead on the generic ballot among LIKELY voters since tracking began in August.

And for the third week in a row, Dems are more likely than Republicans to express a high level of enthusiasm about voting. https://t.co/8boV69VW2N pic.twitter.com/TZDBS9e6Sj

— Eli Yokley (@eyokley) October 4, 2022

The only thing anyone can truly say with any degree of certainty at this point is that Democrats are surpassing predictions, defying historical tendencies, and this midterm election is still very close. That has held true in polls, the four special elections held after the Supreme Court struck down the right to an abortion, as well as the abortion-banning Kansas ballot initiative.

Democrats will be in much better situation after Election Day than anyone had anticipated, whether they win, split, or lose control of both chambers.

At this time, the only thing we should be considering is what we can do to assist in dealing Republicans a historic blow.