According to Sam Wang, the Princeton professor of neuroscience and co-founder of the Princeton Election Consortium, the ongoing government shutdown has placed the Republican Party's hold on the House of Representatives in doubt.

Relying primarily on polling by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling — which, Wang takes care to note, had the best record of all major polling firms for the 2012 election — Wang writes in the Washington Post that "If the election were held today, Democrats would pick up around 30 seats, giving them control of the chamber."

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Wang goes on to acknowledge that the midterm election is more than a year away, and that much could change in the time between now and then. Nevertheless, he finds that, at a minimum, Democrats are likely to gain seats in 2014, and thus buck the historical trend of the president's party losing during the midterms.

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