Forecast Shows Democrats Outperforming Expectations

[DonViejo]

Sam Wang has updated his Senate forecast which shows Democrats with a 70% probability of retaining control of the upper chamber.

One reason his forecast is more favorable to Democrats than others is that he's relying more on actual polls than so-called "fundamentals."

"This year's Senate race is harder than any electoral forecast that the other forecasters have ever had to make. To be frank, 2008 and 2012 were easy. My own experience is guided by 2004 Presidential race, which was as close as this year's Senate campaign. In 2004, I formed the view that the correct approach is to use polls only, if at all possible."

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http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/08/28/forecast_shows_democrats_outperforming_expectations.html

[jeff47]

1. No way! Chuck Todd's gut feeling is so much more accurate!!!!

[BlueCaliDem]

2. Sam Wang's site at the Princeton Election Consortium (PEC) goes into more detail

and explains how he came to that conclusion.

http://election.princeton.edu/2014/08/28/senate-democrats-are-outperforming-expectations/

I’ve been asked why the PEC Senate poll snapshot is more favorable to Democrats than forecasts you’ll find elsewhere: NYT’s The Upshot, Washington Post’s The Monkey Cage, ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight, and Daily Kos. All of these organizations show a higher probability of a Republican takeover than today’s PEC snapshot, which favors the Democrats with a 70% probability.

Today I will show that in most cases, added assumptions (i.e. special sauce) have led the media organizations to different win probabilities – which I currently believe are wrong. I’ll then outline the subtle but important implications for a November prediction.
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