Will the Democratic Party win the NC-13 House seat?

Logged 31 Oct 2026, 15:00 UTC · Brier 0.5663

• Republican incumbent Brad Knott won this district by more than 70,000 votes in 2024, a landslide margin that places NC-13 deep in safe-Republican territory; seats of this type flip only a few percent of the time cycle-over-cycle.
• Knott is the incumbent in 2026, adding incumbency advantage on top of the district's partisan lean.
• The district's recent history shows some two-party competitiveness — a Democrat (Wiley Nickel) won it narrowly in 2022 — so this is not a permanently safe seat, but the 2024 map clearly favors Republicans.
• No public polling exists for this race, so there is no signal of an upset; absence of polling in a race this close to Election Day is itself consistent with forecasters and parties treating it as non-competitive.
• A 2026 midterm environment potentially favorable to Democrats (typical out-party midterm dynamics) is the main reason the probability is not lower, but a wave would need to be historically large to erase a 70,000-vote margin in four days.

What would change it: A late-breaking poll, forecasting-model update, or election-eve reporting showing Paul Barringer within single digits of Brad Knott would push this estimate up substantially.

-18.8 probability points from the market at generation · med confidence · Polymarket

Base rate: Incumbent parties retain House seats they carried by 20-plus points in the prior election at roughly 90-95% of the time in modern cycles; this seat's anchor is Brad Knott's (R) >70,000-vote 2024 win, and no retrieved fact gives a district-specific rate.

Chosen by Crossbook's published selection rule (auto-v2), not by hand.

Formed blind at 6.0%, without sight of the price; published at 24.8%, the market’s 43.5% moved 50% of the way toward it by fixed rule. None of the cited facts could be shown to be one the market had not already priced. That check is recorded, not enforced.