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, FiveThirtyEight’s 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 — Gallup’s 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 FiveThirtyEight’s 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 ...
SEE HERE FOR SENATE RACE RATINGS MAP AS DESCRIBED IN THE ABOVE ARTICLE :
http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/forecasts/senate
The House is going to flip.
If the NYT says one in four, it’s probably more on the order of fifty-fifty - at least.
Invest in companies that make "Hello! my name is_____" nametags, cause they will be selling like mad in Congress.
Matters not. With the House in the Repubs control and a weak majority in the Senate the Dems are going to get nothing done
Larry Sabato - If the Republican wave on November 2 is as large as some polls are suggesting it may be, then the surprise on election night could be a full GOP takeover. Since World War II, the House of Representatives has flipped parties on six occasions (1946, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1994, and 2006). Every time, the Senate flipped too, even when it had not been predicted to do so. These few examples do not create an iron law of politics, but they do suggest an electoral tendency.
One in four chance? Sure if we were rolling dice. But this isn’t random.
Same modeling that had Kerry beating Bush on ‘04?
I read this on RedState...posted by a reader, and it’s really interesting. The Dem “firewall” in the Senate is the left coast..California and Washington. If the GOP tide is really runnign very strong..we’ll know a lot of the east coast races early on, and that will serve to depress Dem turnout on the left coast. It could make the difference..
Well, the Rachel Faith machine says there is a 100% chance of the GOP taking control of the US Senate.
How’d ya like THEM apples?
Straight up. California and Washington BOTH fall to the GOP!
Next !!!
RE: The Dem “firewall” in the Senate is the left coast..California and Washington.
Well, something seems to be penetrating this so-called firewall.
In California, Meredith Whitman is UP against Jerry Brown in the polls.
Carly Fiorina is tied with Barbara (Don’t call me ma’am) Boxer or even slightly ahead.
Hate to say it but the firewall could work as the dumbification of states like mine Kalifornication is so low that the dumb understand the first letter of the word “(D)”.
It's amazing the complete dearth of analytical talent publicly working on this sort of thing.
I can tell you that Nevada is likely Red. I am about to review some pictures on Thursday which could blow the whole thing open. If anyone out there is from national media, they should contact me.
A lot of the polls still list the Arkansas Senate race as “leans” GOP.. Hehehehehe..I’d hate to see what they call a sure pick-up
Pictures? Do tell...
Does Washington do all of its voting by mail now? Anybody know? If so, they might not be affected by election return results on the East coast.
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