Nate Silver: GOP Has 60 Percent Chance Of Winning The Senate

[DonViejo]

By SAHIL KAPUR Published AUGUST 4, 2014, 12:08 PM EDT

In his latest forecast, statistics whiz Nate Silver gives Republicans a roughly 60 percent chance of winning control of the Senate in the November elections.

"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," Silver wrote at FiveThirtyEight on Monday.

The statistician who rose to fame for correctly forecasting the outcome of prior elections noted that his latest analysis is similar to his previous Senate forecasts which give Republicans a slight edge.

Republicans need to win 6 seats in the Nov. 4 elections order to retake the majority. The fundamentals favor them in several key contests.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-gop-60-percent-change-winning-senate

[onehandle]

1. How Impeachy.

Will Obama voters and voters under 30 sit on their asses again?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Unless their Dem candidates give them a positive reason to vote, quite possibly.

The younger crowd doesn't buy into the 'but they suck worse' argument.

So let's hope enough candidates in the races that matter actually give enough of a damn to try and win young voters, instead of just assuming they deserve them.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

5. Well said and thank you.

[Scuba]

3. If only our side had some of those "policy" things to run on.

[bigdarryl]

4. Impeachment talk changed that shitty forecast

Last edited Mon Aug 4, 2014, 03:56 PM - Edit history (3)

And here's another 2014 election prediction by top pychic prediction by Sidney Friedman.Texas turns blue this year and he's pretty good. http://investorplace.com/2013/12/sidney-friedmans-20-psychic-predictions-2014/

[FBaggins]

20. The forecast came after impeachment talk.

Seriously? A psychic prediction?

Silver isn't perfect... but he's significantly more reliable than a psychic.

[rtracey]

6. not getting the real point

Polls are one thing, but hidden messages are another. Basically what Nate Silver is doing is not just telling of a poll 3 months out of an election, but he is telling the Democrats... "Hey, get off your lazy asses and vote". If the Democrats were winning, or have a 60% chance of keeping the Senate, things would be worded differently. Take heart Democrats, although the GOP will not have a 2/3rds majority, and cannot convict on impeachment, and if they gain enough for 51 seats, won't muster enough votes to stay off Democrats filibuster (you better filibuster your asses off if you lose the Senate), and President Obama will veto any BS legislation passed.... Nate Silver is giving us a gift, not we need to use it.... GOTV 2014.....vote Dem

[GeorgeGist]

7. Has anyone told Nate that you need 60 seats to win the Senate.

[Scuba]

8. Only the Democrats need 60. Republicans win with 51.

[Cosmocat]

9. This is my sense

it has to fall together for them ... But this election has absolutely no energy at all, which favors their steady base turnout vs the dems losing the only presidential election voters at the margins ...

It is going to be a good day is the Dems can hold on to the senate ...

[blkmusclmachine]

10. Vote in November! (The teabaggers will be!!!)

[SunSeeker]

11. Just like you had Brazil with a 65% chance of beating Germany, eh Nate?

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-most-shocking-result-in-world-cup-history/

[Union Scribe]

16. Then maybe we can do to the GOP what Germany did to Brazil! nt

[SunSeeker]

19. Works for me!

[lvjj]

12. Call out the milennial voters

Young voters gave us 23 million voters in 2012. By 2015 they will be 1/3 of the total electorate. We need to educate, rally and get every young voter out there mobilized. The power to hold the Senate and even take back the House could lie with this one block of voters.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

13. We sure do need them. And Welcome to DU!

[Rhiannon12866]

14. I totally agree, think we need to get every single voter possible out there on election day

Plus, high turnout favors Democratic candidates. Tomorrow I'm volunteering to make GOTV calls for my congressional candidate. We're starting early and will keep at it through election day. Welcome to DU, lvjj!

[lvjj]

15. So many Lies!

The opportunity is all ours. 3 demographics can turn the House & Senate blue. Women, Hispanics and Millennial (young) voters. But there are some deep chasms of lies to jump over and reaching out to these specific demographics means speaking to them in a way they listen to. The same 'ol attack ads get tuned out. The Koch Bros. have put their bucks behind Generation Opportunity again and has the traveling "Creepy Carenival (it's spelled right, lol) - targeted right to the young voters and especially young women. Saw it on the mall in DC for the kick off July 23rd. Beer pong, pizza, snacks and looooong info forms to fill out. But they had a turn out and now it goes traveling across the country to many of the universities.

[ffr]

17. GOTV 2014. Get involved. Get others involved and get them to vote! n/t

[BlueMTexpat]

18. While I agree with those who believe that Nate is literally sending a signal to Dems

to take the November elections seriously with these results, I also follow Sam Wang's results at the Princeton Election Consortium. http://election.princeton.edu/

More about Sam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Wang_(neuroscientist)

Sam's 2012 election results were slightly better than Nate's. Sam believes that one shouldn't get overly excited (either positively or negatively) about Nate's column. http://election.princeton.edu/2014/08/04/why-youre-wrong-to-get-excited-about-60/#more-10570

But we should indeed be on our toes and GOTV.

[craigmatic]

21. It's still so early that this can hange.