Cook Report moves GA Senate race to "Toss Up"

[Joshgreen]

Too soon. Though Nunn is overall in a better position than Grimes due to more crossover appeal, state lean, etc. Tilt Republican if we want to split hairs. The primary is where it's at and we won't know much until the first round.

[Joshgreen]

Sabato is probably closer to the truth.

Mississippi is not safe Republican...yet.

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

Not sure which way you're going with it, but they're both within the margin of error in every single poll released thus far. Silver's work is obviously heavy on polling and there's not a lot of that yet - and we know his 2012 Senate results changed considerably between spring and fall - but the guy has a 96% success rate on Senate seats thus far.

By that logic, he should have both of them with a greater chance of victory. Instead, he uses his questionable 'state fundamentals' variable which has helped him blow some close races (see 2012 MT/ND). A 96% success rate isn't impressive. Calling close races correctly is impressive.

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

Not sure which way you're going with it, but they're both within the margin of error in every single poll released thus far. Silver's work is obviously heavy on polling and there's not a lot of that yet - and we know his 2012 Senate results changed considerably between spring and fall - but the guy has a 96% success rate on Senate seats thus far.

By that logic, he should have both of them with a greater chance of victory. Instead, he uses his questionable 'state fundamentals' variable which has helped him blow some close races (see 2012 MT/ND). A 96% success rate isn't impressive. Calling close races correctly is impressive.

At this time two years ago, both of those races were considered lost causes much more so than Pryor's seat is today. Berg was up by 10 in several polls, while Rehberg was 5 points ahead. Those races were ranked ~90% for the Republicans at the time. Why should a statistically-tied race enjoy anywhere near that level of confidence for the Republicans? If you think AR is going to be a blow-out, then you're using your own form of "state fundamentals" to come to that conclusion.

I don't think Arkansas should be ranked that low. In fact, Pryor is more likely to win than Nunn (atm) given his incumbency. Obviously things can change but, at the moment, Silver continues to demonstrate his questionably effeminate "neutrality".

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

Not sure which way you're going with it, but they're both within the margin of error in every single poll released thus far. Silver's work is obviously heavy on polling and there's not a lot of that yet - and we know his 2012 Senate results changed considerably between spring and fall - but the guy has a 96% success rate on Senate seats thus far.

By that logic, he should have both of them with a greater chance of victory. Instead, he uses his questionable 'state fundamentals' variable which has helped him blow some close races (see 2012 MT/ND). A 96% success rate isn't impressive. Calling close races correctly is impressive.

Again, Silver doesn't call races. Period. That's just not what he does. The idea that he has a "96% success rate so far" is absolutely an incorrect way to look at his record.

He gives a probability of each winning.  What makes him good is that 75% of the candidates he says have a 75% chance of winning end up winning.  If everyone he gives a 75% to wins, he's not good.

There was nothing "wrong" with him "missing" the ND race in 2012. He needs to be "wrong" 1 out of every 12-13 times he gives a 92% chance or else his probabilities aren't very accurate.

I hope your kidding. If you aren't, you just proved how useless Nate Silver is. What is the point of his model if not to "call" races. Why the hell have a model otherwise?

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

Not sure which way you're going with it, but they're both within the margin of error in every single poll released thus far. Silver's work is obviously heavy on polling and there's not a lot of that yet - and we know his 2012 Senate results changed considerably between spring and fall - but the guy has a 96% success rate on Senate seats thus far.

By that logic, he should have both of them with a greater chance of victory. Instead, he uses his questionable 'state fundamentals' variable which has helped him blow some close races (see 2012 MT/ND). A 96% success rate isn't impressive. Calling close races correctly is impressive.

Again, Silver doesn't call races. Period. That's just not what he does. The idea that he has a "96% success rate so far" is absolutely an incorrect way to look at his record.

He gives a probability of each winning.  What makes him good is that 75% of the candidates he says have a 75% chance of winning end up winning.  If everyone he gives a 75% to wins, he's not good.

There was nothing "wrong" with him "missing" the ND race in 2012. He needs to be "wrong" 1 out of every 12-13 times he gives a 92% chance or else his probabilities aren't very accurate.

I hope your kidding. If you aren't, you just proved how useless Nate Silver is. What is the point of his model if not to "call" races. Why the hell have a model otherwise?

So political parties know where to put their money when candidates run?

Political parties aren't relying on Nate Silver's joke model.

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

Not sure which way you're going with it, but they're both within the margin of error in every single poll released thus far. Silver's work is obviously heavy on polling and there's not a lot of that yet - and we know his 2012 Senate results changed considerably between spring and fall - but the guy has a 96% success rate on Senate seats thus far.

By that logic, he should have both of them with a greater chance of victory. Instead, he uses his questionable 'state fundamentals' variable which has helped him blow some close races (see 2012 MT/ND). A 96% success rate isn't impressive. Calling close races correctly is impressive.

Again, Silver doesn't call races. Period. That's just not what he does. The idea that he has a "96% success rate so far" is absolutely an incorrect way to look at his record.

He gives a probability of each winning.  What makes him good is that 75% of the candidates he says have a 75% chance of winning end up winning.  If everyone he gives a 75% to wins, he's not good.

There was nothing "wrong" with him "missing" the ND race in 2012. He needs to be "wrong" 1 out of every 12-13 times he gives a 92% chance or else his probabilities aren't very accurate.

I hope your kidding. If you aren't, you just proved how useless Nate Silver is. What is the point of his model if not to "call" races. Why the hell have a model otherwise?

So political parties know where to put their money when candidates run?

Political parties aren't relying on Nate Silver's joke model.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=187008.0

You're not proving anything...political parties have their own much more sophisticated models to determine where to spend money, etc They don't need to rely on ambiguously effeminate Nate effin' Silver to tell them how to do their job.

[Joshgreen]

Silver currently sees GOP with 70% chance of winning GASen. That's better than KY and tied with AR.

To say that Pryor is as likely to win as Nunn is ludicrous.

Not sure which way you're going with it, but they're both within the margin of error in every single poll released thus far. Silver's work is obviously heavy on polling and there's not a lot of that yet - and we know his 2012 Senate results changed considerably between spring and fall - but the guy has a 96% success rate on Senate seats thus far.

By that logic, he should have both of them with a greater chance of victory. Instead, he uses his questionable 'state fundamentals' variable which has helped him blow some close races (see 2012 MT/ND). A 96% success rate isn't impressive. Calling close races correctly is impressive.

Again, Silver doesn't call races. Period. That's just not what he does. The idea that he has a "96% success rate so far" is absolutely an incorrect way to look at his record.

He gives a probability of each winning.  What makes him good is that 75% of the candidates he says have a 75% chance of winning end up winning.  If everyone he gives a 75% to wins, he's not good.

There was nothing "wrong" with him "missing" the ND race in 2012. He needs to be "wrong" 1 out of every 12-13 times he gives a 92% chance or else his probabilities aren't very accurate.

I hope your kidding. If you aren't, you just proved how useless Nate Silver is. What is the point of his model if not to "call" races. Why the hell have a model otherwise?

I don't really know what else to tell you. No one is going to build a computer model that can pick winners of 50-50 tossup races with any level of accuracy. Silver's model just gives probabilities, and while there hasn't been enough of sample (that will take years) to say it's definitely a good model, there's been no reason to doubt it yet.

Again, if Silver wasn't "wrong" once every 12-13 times he said a candidate had a 92% chance of winning, the model would be bad.

Again, anyone who knows an ounce about politics can call up to 90% percent of races. The whole point of models is to predict tossup contests, otherwise there would be no point.

[Joshgreen]

Again, anyone who knows an ounce about politics can call up to 90% percent of races. The whole point of models is to predict tossup contests, otherwise there would be no point.

I'm not sure you understand what he's saying or what Silver does. His job isn't to call who is going to win or lose; his job is to determine the statistical likelihood of a candidate winning or losing an election. If he was just going to call the races, then he'd do it the same way that Cook, Sabato and Rothenburg do it by just guessing. Instead, he uses a series of data-sets and weights to project a confidence factor.

It makes more sense if you think about running each race in a simulation of sorts (which is what Silver and the Obama campaign both were doing to determine the likelihood of victory for one party or another in each state). So in May 2012, the GOP had a 70% chance of winning, according to Silver. That means if you ran the simulation 1000 times, the GOP would win 700 times and the Dems would win 300 times. Now obviously, you can't simulate such events in real life and there is only one election, but that doesn't matter in the context of how this data is supposed to be interpreted.

Yes, most races were off the table for one party or another, which is why those races had a 99%+ confidence factor - 18 Senate races, to be exact. North Dakota, in contrast, had a 70% likelihood of going to the GOP in May and a 80% chance in September. The final projection was 92.5% for the GOP in ND, and only 66% in MT - far cries from 99%+ confidence.

The fact is that his probabilities failed spectacularly in two very similar neighboring states. This points to a flaw in his model that emphasizes state fundamentals over polling.

[Joshgreen]

Palin just endorsed Karen Handel. Wowwww.

No surprise. Here's the FB post.

Handel is a Georgian Palin.