Biden has been slammed by voters' pessimism over the economy since he took office. Some of that was the result of an economy scrambled by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Americans continued to feel negative about it even as some indicators picked up. A 538 analysis in June found that even which economic indicators voters cared most about were changed by the experience of the pandemic and the lockdowns and recession that came with it. While Biden was the presumptive nominee, Trump maintained a big advantage on the economy with voters.

When we spoke to voters about the economy in May, partnering with the nonpartisan research firm PerryUndem for two separate focus groups with Trump-leaning voters and Biden-leaning voters, the voters felt in general that the cost of living had been better four years ago. That was true for purchases as small as eggs at the grocery store, and as big as housing or college tuition. In general, Biden leaners planned to vote for the president despite the economy because they agreed with him on other issues or disliked Trump, while Trump-leaning voters were voting for him in large part because of the economy, naming proposals like his calls to drill for more domestic oil and to prioritize hiring American workers first.

So a big question for Harris' campaign is whether it's done enough to escape the economic albatross that Biden couldn't seem to shake. The economy remains a top issue for voters, but it does look like Harris is performing better than Biden did. Since entering the race in July, she has worked to reframe the issue around affordability, and championed policies like helping families by homes, and the New York Times/Sienna College poll from Oct. 20-23 found that Harris had cut Trump's lead on the issue to 6 points, compared to 13 points in early September.

While congressional redistricting typically only happens every 10 years, coinciding with the U.S. Census, five states nevertheless changed their congressional district lines since the 2022 midterm elections due to court-ordered redistricting. These changes can greatly impact the race for control of Congress, since even small shifts in district lines can change the partisan lean of those seats in big ways. Move a boundary a little bit here and a little bit there, and all of a sudden a district that was solidly Republican is now a toss-up (or the other way around). This is even more true in cases where a state's map saw more radical alterations.

In three states, redistricting was mandated under the Voting Rights Act, which in some cases requires the creation of majority-minority districts. Alabama and Louisiana each saw their congressional maps struck down and redrawn to include an additional majority-Black seat, both of which are likely pickups for Democrats. In Georgia, despite redistricting that boosted the number of Black voters in an Atlanta-area district, the new map isn't likely to result in any changes to the state's congressional delegation.

In North Carolina and New York, state supreme courts overturned prior maps as unconstitutional and allowed their state legislatures to redraw the lines to be more favorable to one party or the other. While North Carolina's state legislature aggressively gerrymandered their new map in favor of Republicans, New York's state legislature left their lines mostly unchanged, making tweaks that only minorly benefit Democrats.

All told, Republicans stand to pick up three to four seats in North Carolina thanks to redistricting, while Democrats look positioned to grab two across Alabama and Louisiana. The smaller changes in New York could also help Democrats in a number of competitive races there. Given the tight margins in the current Congress, control of the House of Representatives could ultimately come down to the changes to these states' congressional maps.

The race for control of the House is on a knife's edge. With Republicans currently holding just a 221-to-214 majority (grouping vacant seats with their previous party), Democrats need only a four-seat net change in their favor to regain a one-seat edge in the House.

Given those narrow margins and the broader competitive political environment, 538's forecast of the House understandably gives each party just about a 1-in-2 shot of controlling the chamber after the 2024 election — making the race a true coin flip. Much like the presidential contest, the outcome here is very uncertain.

Digging into individual races, most seats in the House are uncompetitive, so the contests that will decide the House majority make up a very small proportion of the overall map. In 378 of the chamber's 435 seats, one party or the other has a better than 95-in-100 shot of winning, per the 538 forecast. Yet even among the 57 potentially competitive seats left, only some of those are likely to be that competitive, with the forecast viewing most as likely to go to one party or the other.

Ultimately, the universe of seats that will play the largest role in determining which party wins a majority includes 23 seats. In each of these contests, neither side has better than a 75-in-100 chance of victory — the forecast views each as a toss-up or as leaning only slightly toward one party or the other.

Republicans find themselves defending more of this battleground turf than the Democrats do, which is unsurprising given that they flipped a number of these seats in the 2022 midterm elections — nine of the 15 GOP-held seats on this list have incumbents first elected that year. Many of the most competitive seats the GOP is defending are also in "crossover" districts, where the party that holds the seat is different from the one that would have carried it in the 2020 presidential election. While 2020's presidential results of course may not be fully predictive of what we'll see in 2024, crossover districts matter because a seat's presidential vote is a strong baseline indicator of which direction the district is likely to lean, especially nowadays given our sharply polarized politics. Few House members win elections in districts that their presidential nominee didn't also carry in the same election cycle, with the total hitting a recent low of 16 seats in 2020 — just 4% of all 435 districts.

The 2018 cycle was a watershed year for Democratic women, who outperformed Democratic men in their primaries. And in November of that cycle, female candidates put a nail in the "women aren't electable" coffin when they were responsible for more than 60% of the congressional seats that flipped from red to blue.

In congressional races today, a number of Democratic women are challenging incumbent Republicans in seats our forecast rates as competitive, and Democrats are hoping for a similar outcome as 2018. This includes Sue Altman in New Jersey's 7th District, who is challenging Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., and Janelle Bynum in Oregon's 5th District, who is challenging Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, one of just 34 Republican women currently in the House. (If Bynum wins, she will be the first Black person to represent Oregon in Congress.) In Arizona's 6th District, Kirsten Engel is challenging Rep. Juan Ciscomani.

GOP women also have a recent track record of flipping seats: In 2020, Republicans recruited women to run against vulnerable Democrats, in a strategy to flip highly competitive House districts, and many of them did defeat Democratic incumbents. There are a couple of Republican women challenging incumbents in races that our forecast suggests could be close, like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina's 1st District, who is challenging Rep. Donald Davis, and Yvette Herrell in New Mexico's 2nd District, who is challenging Rep. Gabriel Vasquez. Buckhout and Herrell are both running in races our forecast rates "Likely Democrat," but they are still competitive.

If these Democratic and Republican women win, it could certainly add to the number of women in Congress. However, plenty of incumbent women who represent purple districts are facing challenges of their own, like Democratic Reps. Emilia Sykes in Ohio's 13th District, Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez in Washington's 3rd, Susan Wild in Pennsylvania's 7th, and Yadira Caraveo in Colorado's 8th. Republican women at risk of losing their seats include Michelle Steel in California's 45th and Chavez-DeRemer.

At stake is not just these seats, but gender diversity in Congress, which remains low. After the 2022 election, women made up just 29% of the House and 25% of the Senate. But the partisan gap is especially stark: Democratic women make up 41% and Republican women make up just 16% of their respective parties' members of Congress.

I'll be watching these races today, to get a sense of whether either party will add more women to their caucus, and if the progress women have made over the last several cycles (especially since 2018) will finally stall.