Discussion: Nate Silver: GOP Has 60% Chance Of Winning The Senate

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41

Silver does well in forecasting presidential elections because there is so much polling done in the battleground states.

How much reliable polling is done in places like Alaska?

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42

Nate Silver also said that Sharon Angle would beat Harry Reid in Nevada too. Incumbents tend to win unless there is a wave election. I don’t see this as a wave election in 2014 unless democrats come out to vote. Then not only do democrats keep the Senate, but they win in places they should not.

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Amen! The polling this cycle has been abysmal. A lot of it seems to come from polling outfits that are eyebrow-raising at best. Even the Courier Journal is using Survey USA, which has been pretty shitty in the past. Still, Begich, Pryor, Nunn, Hagan and Landrieu have held fairly consistent leads among the most reputable pollsters.

Also, I think most polling outfits, even the more accurate ones, are basing their likely voter models on 2010 numbers. That year was an anomaly. We were in the throes of a depression (nope, not a recession) and a lot of Democratic voters were depressed that Obama hadn’t been able to turn shit into sugar. The Tea Party came on the scene lying their asses off and claiming to be our deliverance from economic ruin while promising a truce on social issues. Obviously, those promises turned out to be several metric tons of horse shit and the people fought back in 2012. So, all of that is to say that I think this year is a hard year to gauge.

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44

Yeah, at this point, I’d have to call his predictions a burger with too high a secret sauce to meat ratio.

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45

The CBS/NYT/YouGov poll of July 28, showes Democrat Mark Begich leading Dan Sullivan (the GOP establishment candidate), by 12 points. He leads the other serious GOP candidate, Mead Treadwell by 2.

Joe Miller, the Tea Party candidate, was not included.

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There will come a time when Nate Silver calls an election wrong, because you can’t tease out all the nuances of human behavior through data manipulation. I’ve found it so odd that people put so much faith in this guy.

You know there was an octopus who correctly called 8 world cups in a row? Then on the 9th he got it wrong. An octopus. Yes, I know that Silver’s predictions are dressed up with a lot of logic and data manipulation, but to believe that someone can predict the future is to believe in fairy dust.

The irony of course, is that there’s always a percentage associated with these predictions. So if Republicans win, he says he called it correctly. If Democrats win, he says he gave them a 40% chance to win, and they pulled through.

So…what the fuck good is this exercise anyway???

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Oh, for fuck’s sake. Nate Silver’s piece at 538 is titled " Republicans Remain Slightly Favored To Take Control Of The Senate". The man is giving the Republicans a *slight * advantage in this year’s election.
I knew that when some saw the 60 % figure they would wet themselves. So did TPM. That’s why it was used as the headline.

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48

It’s still Alaska though, and this is a midterm.

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Thank you for lifting my mood.

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50

Whichever of you is right, one thing for sure is this controversy isn’t going away anytime soon. Back to you, Wolfe.

Thanks, Steve, we’ll have to leave it there. Coming up next, an attractive young white woman is missing. Was it sharks?

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51

If it takes predictions like this to get out the Democratic vote, so be it.

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52

There is not a sufficient variable for anger in this model.

Anger of people of color, anger of women, anger of the poor.

Not only will Dems hold the Senate, they will probably take the House.

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53

Based on WHAT?

What has the Republican bloc in Congress achieved that makes them favorites FOR ANYTHING???

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54

Well, golly! The Republicans have done sooooo much for the American people during the last two years, so why shouldn’t they take over the Senate?

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And yet I just read this from Nate Silver

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/08/04/republicans_slightly_favored_to_take_senate.html

Nate Silver: “The problem for Democrats is that this year’s Senate races aren’t being fought in neutral territory… It therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate. A lot of it is simply reversion to the mean.2 This may not be a “wave” election as 2010 was, but Republicans don’t need a wave to take over the Senate.”

“Summing the probabilities of each race yields an estimate of 51 seats for Republicans. That makes them very slight favorites – perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-40 – to take control of the Senate, but also doesn’t leave them much room for error.”

“However, I also want to advance a cautionary note. It’s still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races.”

The Upshot says Republicans have a 53% chance of winning control.

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They oppose the lawless non-'Murican treasonous niCLANG in the Whites House, and they’re running in states where that’s looked on with approval.

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57

Simmer, festering resentment takes its toll after a while. I think those annoying, smug GOP ads alone could blow the Midterms right out of the Republican water.

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I have said it before and I will say it again, Sahil Kapur has an axe to grind and TPMZ sucks.

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Like polling you take your defeats as gains and offer an excuse. More money to be made on the next encounter.

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60

See my post below
Nate Silver: “The problem for Democrats is that this year’s Senate races aren’t being fought in neutral territory… It therefore shouldn’t be surprising that we continue to see Republicans as slightly more likely than not to win a net of six seats this November and control of the Senate. A lot of it is simply reversion to the mean.2 This may not be a “wave” election as 2010 was, but Republicans don’t need a wave to take over the Senate.”

“Summing the probabilities of each race yields an estimate of 51 seats for Republicans. That makes them very slight favorites – perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-40 – to take control of the Senate, but also doesn’t leave them much room for error.”

“However, I also want to advance a cautionary note. It’s still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races.”

The Upshot says Republicans have a 53% chance of winning control.

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