538 Model Debut: 64% Chance of Republican Majority; R+7 Most Likely

[dmmidmi]

About f'ing time.

[dmmidmi]

I'd say Colorado is a tad generous.

I'd say not.

So Udall leading in most of the polling (even if its narrow) leads to a 52% chance that Gardner would win? Come on dude.

The polling has been basically dead even

This is bullsh!t.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Colorado,_2014

Since April, Udall has led in 17 polls. Gardner has claimed a lead in four. Just because polling has been close, it doesn't mean you can ignore that Udall has been leading in nearly every single poll this year.

[dmmidmi]

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But but but... Nate Silver doesn't make calls! He makes "probabilities" (and thus can never be wrong)!

The beauty of hedging your bets.

[dmmidmi]

So, what then is the value of forecasting, if it can never be proven right or wrong? That is, if we're saying there's an 80% chance of Republican control of the Senate on election day, but the Democrats wind up winning, the forecaster can just say, "This was part of the 20%." So what was the value of the exercise?

More than that, though, what's the value of continuous forecasting up until the election unless those forecasts are relatively stable? Seems to me the relative value of a particular forecast would be in its ability to predict, with a decent degree of confidence, what was going to happen before it happened. But if the best estimate of that is just to look at the polls the night before the election, then isn't most of this just gum-flapping at best?

This is what renders his NCAA March Madness brackets completely useless. In my office pool, I'm required to submit my picks before the Round of 64. Mr. Silver updates his as the tourney goes along. What good is that to anyone?