Discussion for article #225928
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Shocking, it’s a Kapur article.
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Didn’t their odds used to be a hell of a lot higher than 60%? An actual reporter probably would have told us
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Profit!
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" That makes them very slight favorites …"
That should of been the basis for the headline.
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Begich 50-50?
Pryor with 3-2 odds to lose?
Nunn a 75% chance to lose?
I don’t know, Nate.
I think Silver is an absolute whiz with polling data, but as he says, a lot of these races have lousy recent polling data, so he sets it aside. That leaves him to analyze “the fundamentals,” and I don’t trust him (or anyone) all that much to analyze the fundamentals this time. Things are just too screwy.
Quick, in a district with an open seat being vacated by a Republican, with a Republican House, Democratic Senate, and Democratic White House, which party benefits from “throw the bums out” sentiment?
Beats me.
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Nate also says that a lot can change in between now and the election and that it is quite possible one party could win all the open races.
The fact that the GOP is struggling in Kentucky and Georgia is a huge tell. And even though they have an edge on 51 seats, 52 is almost certainly out of their grasp. GOP situation is very much like Romney in 2008 - only one way for them to win: they have to sweep the board in their good states. Only difference is that they now hold an edge in those seats.
If the GOP can’t take the Senate this year they are locked out till 2018 or 2020. The 2016 election will be when the Tea Party wave seats come up for re-election and very little chance that the GOP makes more ground.
GOP is going to be limited to the House for quite some time and even that is going to be up for grabs in 2016. Hilary’s coat tails are probably big enough to overcome GOP disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.
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The Republican takeover of the Senate is a likelihood that we should prepare for. I’m convinced that, politically, things will get worse for progressives before they get better. Angry white voters, especially male voters, are, if anything, RELIABLE voters, and the GOP is counting on a facade of fear to encourage this bloc of voters into voting GOPTP. In the short term it will likely be a successful strategy. Check out the article at Alternet
The White Right’s politics of racial resentment and ideological extremism will continue for a number of reasons. White racial anxiety about changing demographics is pushing aging white voters into the arms of the Tea Party GOP. An assault on the voting rights of black and brown people, the young, as well as the poor and working classes, is amplifying the power of white conservative voters.
New research by Amy Krosch and David Amodio of New York University has suggested that as resources become scarcer, white Americans will become more racially tribalistic as a sense of racial group interest and threat is activated. This provides an incentive to continue with the politics of austerity because those policies could potentially convert white
voters to the Republican Party.
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Those are exactly the numbers I would want out as a Democrat at this stage in the race.
50-50 for an incumbent is not good but incumbents almost always find a way to pull it out. They have lots of options.
These are state races as well and a lot of them have very few polls and highly skewed ones. Nate can compensate for Faux News polls by giving them a low rating but he can’t unskew them by guessing they are fixed for the Conservative.
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“DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”
…just sayin’
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If you read the article, he openly admits that much of the numbers come down to a lack of polling at this point, and therefore relying more on his “fundamentals” numbers which even he admits are hard to pin down in many of these states, like Arkansas.
It is notably anomalous, though, that he lists without comment Grimes’ chances in Kentucky as lower than those of Nunn’s in Georgia. All the polling I’ve seen has shown the opposite, and it would seem the fundamentals are more favorable in Kentucky as well (they regularly elect Democrats to state office, though Georgia may do that this year as well).
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This is precisely why liberals lose: a pathological inability to do what is obvious in the face of a clear threat.
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How big a roll does redistricting play in this scenario? The GOP rigged the game a long time ago.
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Let’s not shoot the messenger.
Look at it this way, maybe this will be a wake up call for progressives who’d rather not see a half million dreamers deported to make sure their voter registration is in order so they can vote in November.
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So the GOP wins the Senate, 51-49.
Then what?
That’s the question every Democratic candidate should push back with when someone nags them with this defeatist bullshit.
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Redistricting does not effect Senate races.
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“…but also doesn’t leave them much room for error.”
It’s a good thing that the Republicans don’t have a history of last-minute unforced errors.
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Just go to the betting sites. They’ve been more accurate than Nate his whole career. It was cool when he showed up in '08, as he forced the media to at least attempt a quasi-scientific analysis of the data, but now there’s really no need to pay attention to him since he’s actually not even that good at it.
Careful - that 50/50 is an expression of probabilities, not the result of polling.
Your comment, about incumbents and 50%, applies to polling data.
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Doesn’t Silver consistently have problems calling Congressional and Senate races because there’s nowhere near as much polling data as he gets in Presidential races?
Not sure anyone has mentioned this, but Nate was wrong on the senate in both 2010 and 2012 around this time, in both cases too bullish on the GOP. I am not saying I will be shocked, but I guarantee there will be some surprises on election day, and the biggest story could be that Landrieu and Pryor and Begich all win and Mighty Mitch takes the fall…
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Redistricting affects the House, doesn’t affect the Senate. Senators are elected at large for the state.