Nate-dog does his Nerdy Numbers Thing on the 2010 Congressional Elections

Clio the Leo

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Thu Jan-07-10 01:35 PM
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Nate-dog does his Nerdy Numbers Thing on the 2010 Congressional Elections

Edited on Thu Jan-07-10 01:36 PM by Clio the Leo

I think it's a bit premature to speculate too much at this point, but Nate Silver is the EF Hutton of the liberal number-crunching political world (at least he should be.) So if he has some thoughts on the matter ..... especially if they are good for us .... it's worth a read.

I'm reluctant to publish these as a matter of course, since when you begin to put specific numbers out there, people may assume that you're more certain about a race than you really are. Nevertheless, in light of what I think is somewhat inaccurate conventional wisdom that has developed around the 2010 Senate picture, it is probably worth "showing my work" on occasion. What you see above, then, are my very rough and premature estimates of probabilities of the various competitive and potentially competitive Senate seats switching hands.

If I aggregate my estimates from the individual races, I show Republicans picking up an average of 4.60 Democratic seats, but also, Democrats picking up an average of 2.65 Republican seats, for a net Republican gain of 1.95 seats.

But this is very important: the average is somewhat noninformative here, as these races do not operate independently from one another. It is somewhat unlikely -- though certainly not impossible -- that Republicans will pick up 4-5 Democratic seats and Democrats will pick up 2-3 Republican seats. If the national environment continues to improve for the Republicans, for example, perhaps they'll pick up six or all seven of the seats that are basically toss-ups or better (everything from Illinois upward), and perhaps put another race like California or Wisconsin into play, while defending one or all but one of their own seats.

On the other hand, if conditions improve for the Democrats, perhaps they can hold their losses to 2-3 seats (say North Dakota plus one or two from the group DE/NV/CO/AR) while picking up Missouri, perhaps two from the OH/KY/NH group, and one from the NC/FL/LA group. In that case, Democrats could hold at 60 seats ....

Now BRACE yourselves, sit down and make sure you're not holding any liquids in your mouth before you read this part...

or even improve their numbers to 61-62.

(running around screaming!!!! OBAMA IS THE GREAT CHESS MASTER!!!! OBAMA IS THE GREAT CHESS MASTER!!!! :) )

There are an unusually large number of Senate races in play this year and as such there is an unusually large amount of uncertainty surrounding the outcome. It also bears remembering that, although I remain quite pessimistic about what will happen to Democrats in the House, the Senate playing field is intriniscally more favorable to them. The Senators who are up for re-election this year are those who were elected in 2004 -- a good cycle for Republicans. And while Democrats were hurt by their retirements in North Dakota, Delaware, New York, Illinois and probably Colorado (they were helped by Chris Dodd's retirement in Connecticut), the Republicans have created opportunities for them with the retirements in Missouri, Ohio, New Hampshire and perhaps Florida (they were helped by Jim Bunning's retirement in Kentucky). If the 2006 senate class were up for re-election this year, Democrats would potentially face very substantial losses, but fortunately for Democrats they aren't.