Like a rolling thunder, the fundraising reports delivered a loud statement for Democratic House contenders: Sharice Davids in Kansas with $2.7 million, Lauren Underwood in Illinois had $1.9 million, Leslie Cockburn in Virginia with $2.4 million, and on and on.

The wide campaign cash advantage means Democrats now have a 96.6 percent chance of retaking the House of Representatives — their strongest position yet, according to OZY’s exclusive election forecasting model in partnership with Republican data and technology firm 0ptimus. Democrats are projected to take 234 seats, a six-seat improvement over last week.

The Q3 reports are included in this update, and boy did they leave a dent. Alex Alduncin, 0ptimus data scientist

“The Q3 reports are included in this update, and boy did they leave a dent,” says Alex Alduncin, data scientist for 0ptimus. “House Democrats had their best midterm fundraising quarter ever. They outraised Republicans by more than a 2-to-1 margin. There are still plausible simulations in our confidence interval with Republicans maintaining the House by one or two seats, but they are very unlikely as of now.”

But money isn’t everything. Republicans’ hold on the Senate took a bit of a dent, as they now have an 86.5 percent chance of capturing at least 50 seats for a majority, but we still project them to come away with 52 GOP senators come January. For example, Beto O’Rourke raised a stunning $38 million in Texas but still has just a 38.5 percent chance of taking out Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.

In partnership with Washington-based consulting firm 0ptimus, we crunched more than 100 factors that helped predict past elections, with extra weighting for unique aspects of this political year, to produce these forecasts. For more on how these numbers were derived, scroll down to the box below. For more exclusive election coverage, subscribe to our Midterms in a Minute newsletter.

When compared with some other forecasting models, OZY and 0ptimus are more bullish on Democratic chances to seize the House in part because we give extra weight to small-dollar donations (a sign of a candidate’s grassroots enthusiasm) and put less emphasis on outside money (where Republicans continue to hold an advantage).

In addition to the money chase, generic ballot polls also improved this week for Democrats. The national political environment now favors them by 7.8 percentage points — Democrats’ first improvement after more than a month of Republican gains that coincided with the brutal fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

But this week’s movement was mostly about following the money. In all, 68 House seats moved by more than 5 percentage points and 21 moved by more than 10 percent — nearly all toward Democrats. With two weeks to go, there is still time for the political math to shift. In Republicans’ favor is an increasingly popular President Donald Trump, who, at 47 percent approval in the most recent NBC News poll, is in better political shape than Barack Obama at this point in 2010. And if we’ve learned anything in the past three years, it’s to expect the unexpected.