Nate Silver: G.O.P. Poised to Control 30 Governor Seats

[tritsofme]

Republicans are on track to control approximately 30 governor seats after the Nov. 2 election, according to the FiveThirtyEight gubernatorial forecasting model. And they are likely to do particularly well in the swing states of the Midwest.

Such an outcome would reverse the current state of the nation’s governors’ mansions, which are now held by 26 Democrats, 23 Republicans and 1 independent.

<SNIP>

Nevertheless, both the math and the clock are working against the Democrats, and even if the Republicans do not do win 30 seats, they have a 95 percent chance of controlling at least an outright majority of governor’s mansions, according to the model.

This is the debut of FiveThirtyEight’s gubernatorial forecasts, which will be updated approximately once a week until the elections. The methodology behind them is similar to FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecasting model, in that they are informed by a rigorous statistical analysis of election outcomes since 1998. However, the gubernatorial model also contains a number of important differences: economic variables like unemployment, which have greater predictive power in gubernatorial races than in Congressional races, play a more explicit role, for instance. In addition, gubernatorial races have a greater statistical tendency to regress to the mean -– that is, to tighten as the election draws closer –- even if the polling is initially lopsided. These distinctions will be discussed at more length in subsequent articles.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/g-o-p-poised-to-control-30-governors-seats/

87% chance that Bill Brady becomes the next governor of Illinois? I knew Quinn was in trouble, but I didn't think it was this bad. Brady is a wacko.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. Yeah, we're pretty fucked in Illinois. This is just embarrassing. nt

[left coaster]

2. Dollars trump sense. nt

[impik]

3. Stupid country

[book_worm]

4. It's way too early to predict what will happen. Two months is a long time

[TayTay]

5. I think he's right

but I don't think any of the "remedies" put forth by the extreme Right on the Republican side will do anything but make the economic climate worse.

So, we are likely to have extremely volatile election cycles for the next 6 years.

[joshcryer]

6. Colorado is safe, GOP having breakdown here, haha.

Only good thing about these upcoming elections.

[KingFlorez]

7. A few of which are in red states

Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee aren't exactly surprising, since they would obviously revert back to Republican control after 8 years of Democratic Governors.

[michreject]

11. And one is a blue state

Michigan

[blue_onyx]

12. Well,

The Dems can still win MI. The general election has barely started so we have a long way to go.

[michreject]

14. Don't bogart that joint my friend

pass it over to me. :)

[blue_onyx]

15. Just wait...

When ads criticizing Snyder for outsourcing start running, his poll numbers will go down. The election is just getting started.

[Exilednight]

16. And who is going to pay for those ads? The party is pulling money out of ................

many states where numbers are running against them.

[blue_onyx]

17. You do realize...

that the national Democratic party isn't the only source of money, right? The unions will be probably spend a lot of money supporting Bernero, just like they did in the primary.

[Exilednight]

18. Money, typically, follows money. n/t

[Born_A_Truman]

8. Meg ahead of Jerry? Yikes!

http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/forecasts/governor/california

[Livluvgrow]

9. But hey thats ok

After all isn't it supposed to be one big bipartisan kumbya according to some that is what we all voted for. They will work to ensure our side is considered. I wont worry about it.

[Gordan Shumway]

10. That's interesting. Tell me more about your Loxodonta excrement.

[Awsi Dooger]

13. No kidding, Nate

I've been mentioning this to friends for more than a year. It's the unsaid major impact of 2010, the boost in the GOP's bench. I'm always stunned there isn't more emphasis on gov races.

We already figured to have a poor year based on simple geography, the unlikely seats we picked up in 2002 and held in 2006. Most, of not all, of those were going to revert to typical partisanship in 2010, even without the lousy economy and midterm trend.

It won't be so bad if we can hold or pick off some of the biggies. The GOP may monopolize the par 3 states.