Tag Archives: Nate Silver

Silver on the Senate

Three months ago, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight looked at the Senate races and projected that the GOP would gain 5.8 seats.  Rounding up, that’s six seats, which is what they need to take control.

Now he looks at those races and finds very little movement, projecting the GOP will gain 5.7 seats.

Some specifics:  he gives the Dems an 80% chance of keeping their seat in New Hampshire; says Alaska and North Carolina are 50-50; gives the GOP a slight 55% edge in Arkansas and Louisiana; sees the GOP favored 70-30 in Georgia, 80-20 in Kentucky, and 90-10 in Mississippi.

Silver explains that the 10% Dem chance in Mississippi is based on really no chance if Thad Cochran wins his runoff, and maybe 20% if Chris McDaniel wins.  At this point, it looks as if McDaniel might well win.  But that just translates into a smaller margin for the GOP by nominating the more extreme candidate, not a Dem win.

Can the Dems Keep the Senate?

Leo, the NYT computer model for Senate races, currently gives Dems a 56% chance of keeping their majority.

Leo really doesn’t like Scott Brown.  He [It?] gives Brown only a 3% chance of beating Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire.

As the election season draaaags on, it will be interesting to compare Josh Katz and his Leo with Nate Silver and his FiveThirtyEight.

Nate Speaks

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com says the GOP has a 60% chance of taking the Senate.

But he’s not bullish on our favorite empty barn jacket, former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown, who is now running in New Hampshire against Jeanne Shaheen.  Silver gives Shaheen a 75% chance of keeping her seat, leaving Brown to hop in his pickup truck and perhaps look for love (he is, after all, a former Cosmopolitan centerfold) in yet a third state.

Nate Silver Returns to His Roots

Our favorite election prognosticator, Nate Silver, is moving his FiveThirtyEight brand from the NYT to ESPN.  During election years, he’ll work for ABC.  Nate was a baseball statistician before he went into election analysis.

Nate is expected to be a regular on Keith Olbermann’s new show, which starts in late August.  Keith has been told that besides sports, he can talk about pop culture and current events on his show, but not politics.  Not sure how you talk about current events without talking about politics, not sure how you stop Keith from talking about politics, so his show may not be around very long.  But I will enjoy it while I can…

 

 

Nate Says Tea Party Will Defeat Rove

From “New Rove Group Could Backfire on G.O.P., Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight, NYT:

“Mr. Rove’s efforts could back fire, therefore, if they result in the insurgent candidate receiving more sympathetic treatment through these channels [conservative-friendly news media outlets]; the amount of so-called ‘earned media’ that the insurgent receives could outweigh the extra advertisements that the establishment candidate is able to afford.

“My analysis of fund-raising data…has found that it is generally the proportion or ratio of funds raised by each candidate that has the most power to predict races, rather than the absolute amounts.

“Suppose, for example, that the establishment candidate has raised $3 million and the insurgent candidate $500,000, a six-to-one advantage for the establishment candidate.  Mr. Rove’s group intervenes and contributes $1 million to the establishment candidate, bringing him to $4 million total.  In response, the insurgent candidate raises $500,000 through grass roots groups, bringing her to $1 million total.  Despite the absolute difference between the candidates’ fund-raising totals having increased, the ratio has declined to a four-to-one advantage for the establishment candidate from six-to-one previously, arguably leaving the insurgent candidate in better shape than before the fund-raising salvos.”

Right Wing Tries to Kill Hagel by Saying He’s Dead

“He who hesitates is lost”  — and the delay of the Armed Services Committee vote on Chuck Hagel for DoD has created a vacuum that the right-wing is rushing to fill with anti-Hagel venom.

The right is trying to put the Hagel nomination in trouble by claiming that it already is in trouble.  You kill him by pronouncing him already dead.

Tom Ricks, at Foreign Policy, says it’s now “50-50” that Hagel will withdraw.  He illustrates his post with a slice of bread, half of which has been toasted.  Going all Nate Silver, he writes “Bottom line:  Every business day that the Senate Armed Services Committee doesn’t vote to send the nomination to the full Senate, I think the likelihood of Hagel becoming defense secretary declines by about 2 percent.”

At Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, relying on “Senate sources,” i.e., Tea Partier Ted Cruz (R-Texas),  tries to link Hagel to a group called “Friends of Hamas,” which sounds like a Daily Show joke.  Shapiro claims White House Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz hung up on him when he called to ask.

The neo-cons at American Future Fund (Bill Kristol and friends) are running an anti-Hagel on the Sunday talks shows this weekend.  If the vote had happened on Thursday as scheduled, they wouldn’t have had another weekend to grind up Chuck, but Carl Levin gave them this gift.  The gift of time is invaluable when you’re trying to stop a nomination.

Over at National Review, Andrew Stiles has a long post called “What’s Hagel Hiding?” where, based on anonymous sources, he proclaims the nomination in trouble:

“GOP Senate aides say they are not sure why Levin decided to postpone the vote, but suspect that Hagel’s nomination could be in jeopardy.  ‘The only plausible reason they delayed the vote is because they didn’t have enough votes to confirm him,’ an aide close to the committee told National Review Online.  Some Republicans are said to be considering a hold on Hagel’s nomination….

“Now, there is reason to believe Hagel could be in trouble.”

“Multiple sources raised the possibility that the materials Republicans are seeking contain ‘explosive details’ that could prove devastating Hagel’s prospects for confirmation.  Some Hagel opponents strongly suspect he has delivered speeches at events hosted by organizations most Americans would find ‘unsavory.'”

Also at National Review, Andrew McCarthy asks, “Is Hagel Toast?” and tries to link Hagel to the National Iranian American Council, which lobbies for the Iranian government.

Jennifer Rubin, who writes for the Washington Post, but confuses it with the Jerusalem Post, gleefully says this is a “critical” weekend for the nomination she opposes, gets all conspiratorial about Levin, and starts writing Hagel’s obituary:

“Or it might be that Levin, with or without encouragement from the White House, is letting this nominee hang out there for maybe just one more shoe to drop, thus ridding everyone (especially our troops) of Hagel’s stewardship of the military at a particularly challenging time.

“It does seem the weekend is critical.  We will see how vigorously (or not) the White House defends Hagel on the Sunday shows; whether any more Republicans publicly announce their opposition or any Democrats show weakness; and, finally, what documents, if any, Hagel coughs up.  The weekend also gives the White House, if so inclined, to come up with a Plan B — a qualified, competent nominee who won’t scare the living daylights out of the Senate.”