Manual Senate scandal adjustment

Judgment date: October 20, 2026 · Polling cutoff: October 19

User-selected current-election judgments. These penalties are not fitted coefficients and have not been shown to improve forecast accuracy. Historical tests below the main forecast do not include this layer.

Net candidate-margin penalties: minor 0.5, moderate 1, major 2 points. Marshall uses 1.5; Darline Graham uses 0.75. This retains half the assumed full effect for overlap with polling. The fraction is editable and is not an estimated overlap rate.

Democratic-caucus chance of 51 seats: 47.6% → 53.3%. Expected caucus seats: 50.31 → 50.68. House estimates are unchanged.

Selected candidates

State	Candidate	Severity	Net penalty (margin points)	Evidence and qualifications
FL	Ashley Moody	Minor	0.50	Hope Florida settlement and political-spending controversy Prior review traced settlement approval and subsequent transfers. Personal direction of political transfers is not established; her office says another agency negotiated the agreement. Previously reviewed source; earliest Moody-specific news date remains uncertain. Source 1
GA	Mike Collins	Moderate	1.00	Congressional-resource ethics review and son-in-law's extremist-content reporting OCC referral concerns resource use and is not a finding of a violation. CNN reported extremist material shared by Collins's son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II; this was not his son. Collins says others do not speak for him. No separate family-conduct penalty is stacked. Official referral and contemporaneous CNN reporting verified. Source 1 Source 2 Source 3
KS	Roger Marshall	Moderate–major	1.50	Medical-debt collection and patient arrests New reporting described lawsuits and arrests connected to collection proceedings involving Marshall's former medical practice. Arrests related to court processes must not be described as a conviction of the candidate. The claimed focus-group effect is the user's salience judgment; no representative focus-group estimate has been verified or fitted. NYT indexed reporting located; primary nytimes.com article body was inaccessible through web open. Source 1 Source 2
ME	Susan Collins	Minor	0.50	New donor-contract and past-investigation reporting Retain disputed donor-contract reporting from the prior review. Collins denies wrongdoing; no bribery charge or finding is asserted. User rates electoral impact minor. Prior reviewed reporting and contemporaneous follow-up located. Source 1 Source 2
MI	Mike Rogers	Minor	0.50	Gas-card promotion and family contracting/conflict reporting Reporting describes his wife's gas-card promotion and raises questions about family business contracts during his intelligence-chairmanship tenure. This overlay does not classify the promotion as adjudicated bribery or establish an unlawful quid pro quo. Use one minor candidate-level penalty for both stories. Contemporaneous published reporting located; allegations retained as allegations. Source 1 Source 2
SC	Darline Graham	Minor–moderate	0.75	Family succession, appointment and qualification criticism Darline Graham succeeded her deceased brother and became the Republican nominee. User regards family-succession criticism as a minor/moderate electoral liability. Appointment and related criticism are not themselves proof of unlawful nepotism. Current candidate identity confirmed by existing forecast and contemporaneous reporting; user explicitly confirmed Darline. Source 1 Source 2
TX	James Talarico	Minor	0.50	Gender-policy attack coverage and fabricated health rumors Policy statements and attack advertising generated adverse coverage. Health rumors were false/unsubstantiated and are not coded as candidate misconduct. The minor penalty is the user's hypothesized electoral effect of negative coverage; no measured rumor effect is asserted. Earlier address reporting receives no separate penalty. Fact-check reporting distinguishes genuine policy controversy from fabricated health claims. Source 1 Source 2 Source 3
TX	Ken Paxton	Major	2.00	Impeachment, affair/divorce reporting and ethics controversies Impeachment and subsequent divorce reporting fall inside the previous-election-for-this-seat window. Paxton was acquitted on the impeachment articles; legal allegations are not convictions. Older resolved allegations are context, not separately stacked penalties. Acquittal and subsequent public reporting verified. Source 1 Source 2 Source 3

Effect on each race

Positive margins favor the Democrat*. Texas nets both candidates’ penalties.

State	Before	After	Margin change	D* chance before	D* chance after
FL	-7.53	-7.03	+0.50	7.7%	9.0%
GA	+7.90	+8.90	+1.00	90.0%	92.4%
KS	-3.08	-1.58	+1.50	27.6%	38.0%
ME	+3.02	+3.52	+0.50	71.5%	74.5%
MI	+2.79	+3.29	+0.50	70.8%	74.0%
SC	-3.93	-3.18	+0.75	23.6%	28.0%
TX	+0.16	+1.66	+1.50	51.4%	63.0%

Existing uncertainty scales are retained; intervals are conditional on these chosen penalties. The Without manual scandal adjustment option on the main forecast removes the overlay while preserving the statistical model. No other candidates receive a manual penalty.

Sources and downloads

Editable policy · Candidate penalties and sources · Race comparison · Full definitions and limitations

Reporting of allegations or criticism is not a legal finding. Fabricated health claims are not treated as true. Same source files and earlier research ratings are preserved.