Nate Silver, the statistician so accurate he predicted every state but one correctly in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, just published his latest Senate forecast…
Optimists are going to have to work a lot harder over the next few days – and years.
Uber-accurate statistician Nate Silver says Republican chances of taking over the Senate have never been higher this year.
“The GOP’s chances of winning the Senate are 68.5 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast, its highest figure of the year,” writes Silver, who apparently was up all night crunching numbers.
And meet your new (likely) Senate Majority Leader.
Silver writes, “we have a clearer story in Kentucky. It’s one that probably ends in a victory for McConnell, whose chances of winning are up to 87 percent.”
Republicans need six seats overall to take the Senate, but Silver says they’re probably not going to stop there.
More often than not, in fact, Republicans’ magic number will not be six seats. Instead, in more than 60 percent of our simulations the FiveThirtyEight model ran Thursday night, Democrats won at least one GOP-held seat. And about 20 percent of the time, they won at least two Republican seats. So the GOP’s magic number could be seven, eight or even nine seats instead.
And to those looking at key races, more Silver predictions on GOP Senate wins:
1. Montana (99.8 percent chance of a GOP win)
2. South Dakota (99 percent)
3. West Virginia (98 percent)
4. Arkansas (90 percent chance)
5. Louisiana (77 percent chance)
6. Colorado (75 percent chance)
7. Iowa (67 percent chance)
8. Alaska (67 percent chance)
9. North Carolina (32 percent chance)
10. New Hampshire (17 percent chance)
The good news for Democrats this year?
Not much.
Some of Democrats’ roughly 30 percent chance of holding the Senate represents these cases: where they win squeakers in a number of the closest races and Republicans fall just short of a majority.
Bottom line: go vote.
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Image by memories_by_mike via Flickr