Posted on 09/08/2010 9:02:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Republicans now have approximately a one-in-four chance of winning enough Senate seats in the Nov. 2 elections to claim an outright majority of the chamber, FiveThirtyEights latest forecasting model shows.
That the composition of the Senate is in doubt is not a new development; the model had assigned Republicans better than a one-in-five chance of claiming the chamber upon its debut at The New York Times two weeks ago. Nevertheless, nearly every day now seems to bring another sour piece of polling news for the Democrats.
Today, for instance, a poll for The Washington Post showed Republicans with a 13-point lead among likely voters on the generic Congressional ballot, which would imply a potentially catastrophic outcome for Democrats. Although the polling trend is not always uniform or predictable Gallups generic ballot poll, which had given Republicans a 10-point advantage last week, now shows the two parties running evenly the Democrats hopes for a spontaneous political recovery this summer now appear to be dashed.
Although the generic ballot is used to help calibrate FiveThirtyEights Senate model, most of its inputs are polls of individual Senate races. There, the news is somewhat more mixed. Although polls have come out in the last two weeks showing the Republican nominee in Kentucky, Rand Paul, with an increasingly large lead, and Pat Toomey, the G.O.P. nominee in Pennsylvania, with an expanding advantage over his Democratic opponent, Representative Joe Sestak, a recent poll in Colorado showed the Democratic incumbent, Michael Bennet, with a slight lead. And the model now regards Harry Reid as a slight favorite to retain his seat in Nevada, which was not the case two weeks ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com ...
If this “glass half empty” moron thinks so, it must look pretty good for a republican “takeover”.
I’d say the Repubicans have the same chance of winning the Senate as Secretariat would’ve had against a random collection of horses at a racetrack in a small town.
Good point!
Yes, pictures that would effectively show he was under the sway of the mob when he was called Mr. Cleanface by Joe Agosto. It would also make him not just Dirty Harry but Naughty Harry as well - a big deal for a Mormon in a Mormon state.
Sounds like Harry’s got some ‘splaining to do!
If you look at how they are handicapping the Houuse races, they are showing that the Democrats maintain control by a comfortable margin!
Better yet, please show....pretty please :)
Even if we get them at the same time as the media, it would be great to help spread them around.
Hell! I’ll print ‘em up and poster the town.
Here’s a model for you!
The folks at RealClearPolitics.com have the Senate race at 51 - 49 Dems, with WI and CA tilting R, which would flip the advantage to 51 - 49 Republicans.
If voter turnout in Nevada boots Reid from the Senate, then we’re 52-48 and bulletproof, assuming Graham and McCain get the message that “reaching accross the aisle” is a fools errand.(Maine is hopeless)
-PJ
Intrade is blocked here; can you summarize ?
These two races are special elections to fill vacant seats, which means that the winner is seated immediately, not at the start of the next Congress.
If the Republicans can go into the lame-duck session with 43 votes instead of 41, then they might be in a stronger position to prevent cloture on any of the Democrats' lame-duck legislations that they are reported to try to force on us, such as cap-and-trade or immigration reform.
-PJ
Considering the relatively small number of discrete outcomes, I'm not a particular fan of basing projections solely on the numbers. Informed observation is likely to be more accurate.
There are enough House races to perhaps make a model more worthwhile -- but the problem with the House races is a lack of reliable polling.
That was not a criticism of your modeling, btw, just my general philosophy.
A freakin piece of sandstone could run for Senate here in Washington and say “I have more brains than Patty Murray”.
It wouldn’t be a lie!!
My House model uses polls where they exist, otherwise it uses an average of 6 expert assessments (e.g. Sabato, Cook, RCP, etc.).
Without going into the details of the model, the poll-based models use the gap in polls and the margin of error to determine the winner probabilistically, and then runs many simulations to calculate the overall probability of reaching 51 seats.
If been running the Rasmussen model since early July, and the House model with KHR data going back to May, in order to plot the trends.
-PJ
I just checked the link so you’re saying you can’t access that link? I know I have that problem sometimes when I travel and can’t access sites I normally go to. Check the link again and if you’re blocked from the site I’ll see what I can do.
There’s an arbitrage opportunity at Intrade. They give 60-60.7 for D to control Senate, 27.2-28.8 for R to control Senate, and 15.5-15.7 for neither to control Senate. That adds to 102.7-105.2 percent.
Nope. People putting real money on the line. Oh, the D has 60% to win Pres in 2012. Looks like they’re running Hitlery. Repub at 39%. 150% return in 26 months - take the money and run.
Romney leading candidate at 29-30. Thune at 18. Pawlenty at 11-23. Daniels at 7-10, Huck at 6-7, Jeb at 5-8, Ron Paul at 4-5, Ryan at 3-4, Jindal at 4-5, Gingrich (Gingrich!) at 9-10. Lots of easy money on against.
Palin at 18-19 to take nomination. That’d be a contingent probability of <8% for Palin to be President, or 12-1 against.
It’s difficult to correctly model, where the probabilities are connected, as these most assuredly are. I get about 85% for R control of the House, and about 28% for control of the Senate. If the Rs take the House, I then get 32% for the Senate.
If things move even 1% more to the Rs, I get 40% for the Senate, and 2% gets over 55%. That’s diff 1 and 2, not R up 1-2 and D down 1-2.
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