Election models megathread

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

There are a lot of highly questionable probabilities and predicted vote shares in individual races, but it seems like the model is erring roughly equally in both directions, so the national projections seem relatively reasonable.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

These numbers all seem reasonable to me? Going off polls alone, Democrats DO appear to be favored to retain the Senate but lose the House.

Going off VI polls alone isn't reasonable after 2020.

[Pericles]

I'm pretty sure Senate races are more connected to the national environment than this says. If Republicans are winning the House popular vote by 6 points, they are definitely winning the Senate.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

In Act Blue I don't have the link Val Demings is it down only 46/48 so we can win red states, I just colored FL solid D just like the Gov race, but it should be on Twitter tracking soon since Crist is tied with DeSantis 🤩🤩🤩🤩

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

If 538 gets the Senate right, then dems might just win the generic ballot lmao

this is complete rubbish

[Statilius the Epicurean]

What I don't understand is Nate said that the Senate forecast is taking into account that it thinks the general Congressional ballot will be R+6 by election day. I'm just highly, highly sceptical in an age of declining ticket splitting that Democratic Senate candidates will outrun generic D by 6, 8, 9 points in maybe half a dozen states. Seems like the model is overrating the predictive ability of June polling for a November election. Not many voters are paying attention to electoral politics at the moment.

And yes, I understand it's a polling site and they're supposed to be weighting polls heavily for that reason. But that's maybe a rationale for not releasing the model until September or so.

[Minnesota Mike]

1st update and Republicans are up to a 55% chance to control the Senate. What's changed in the last 24 hours?

[Politician]

1st update and Republicans are up to a 55% chance to control the Senate. What's changed in the last 24 hours?

Dem internals came out showing them tenously leading in NV, which caused 538 to improve their % odds for Laxalt.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

This is a silly model, I don't look at these models why are users so concerned over models it's votes that matter ñot models they are like the Rs on this forum they are going off of Biden low Approvals

On Act blue Demings is down 46/48,  the vote is what matters not any silly models or ratings, that's why I make my own map not based on silly  ratinge


IPSOS just came our with Biden at 38 percent it was reported on MSNBC and 7 percent of Rs Approve of Biden

[Minnesota Mike]

1st update and Republicans are up to a 55% chance to control the Senate. What's changed in the last 24 hours?

Dem internals came out showing them tenously leading in NV, which caused 538 to improve their % odds for Laxalt.

Seems like a big jump for one poll, especially one that had CCM up. They must be factoring in one hell of a house effect.

BTW just because I have to be that guy the Change Research polls are not internals, that would indicate they were paid for by the campaign or party, they were paid for by an outside Dem leaning group. Small but real difference.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

1st update and Republicans are up to a 55% chance to control the Senate. What's changed in the last 24 hours?

Dem internals came out showing them tenously leading in NV, which caused 538 to improve their % odds for Laxalt.

Seems like a big jump for one poll, especially one that had CCM up. They must be factoring in one hell of a house effect.

BTW just because I have to be that guy the Change Research polls are not internals, that would indicate they were paid for by the campaign or party, they were paid for by an outside Dem leaning group. Small but real difference.

They are going off Biden low Approvals IPSOS has Biden at 38 percent

[Senator Incitatus]

Worth noting that right now the Democratic lead is extremely slight (less than 50% of events) in all four close states and only slightly better in NH. So if you believe the (a) polling error is still underestimated theory or (b) waves break late theory, the model is still entirely consistent with a Republican wave.

I tend to believe (a) and am skeptical about (b), which the model appears to already account for. The point is, 538 does serviceable work and it's good to have a model to look at even if it isn't perfect, so long as you recognize its limitations.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

If the election was held today, days after Dobbs, the Dems would have a fighting chance at taking the Senate. If races changing that much is news to you, ask Senator Phil Bredesen

[DS0816]

…

F**k off, Nate.

…

I recommended your comment because of that one sentence.

Thank you!

👏

[ProgressiveModerate]

Honestly the Senate forecast doesn't seem too unreasonable and the House topline makes sense though there are def a few races that individually don't make much sense. They just don't align with eachother, though tbf overall they pretty much align with Atlas perhaps witha  slight boost to Dems.

The Governors forecast seems quite favorable to Dems in some places (i.e 91% Whitmer) but considering the fundamentals of the GOP candidates literally getting arrested, Whitmer's strong 2018 performance, and relatively good approval and poll numbers, I could see why a model would output that.

WI and KS are also a bit suprising; perhaps incumbency advantages and approvals skew things? After that, it seems relatively reasonable though def favourable to Dems

Making a statistical model is hard, trust me I've done it myself. The reason it trickly is because you know the polls could be slightly skewed (i.e the Warnock + 10 poll) but how you get a model to objectively be able to tell that poll is BS just becuase YOU think it is.

Their 2018 Senate and House forecasts were relatively decent all things considered and their 2020 model held up better than a lot of pundits though still slightly overestimated Ds. Even in 2020 House they still rated races like CA-25 and CA-21 as tossups even as many had written those off and generally didn't buy into the MASSIVE D House wave narative.

With the resources out there, the 538 model is as good as it gets, especially when a lot of the resources a model is reliant upon are flawed.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Honestly the Senate forecast doesn't seem too unreasonable and the House topline makes sense though there are def a few races that individually don't make much sense. They just don't align with eachother, though tbf overall they pretty much align with Atlas perhaps witha  slight boost to Dems.

The Governors forecast seems quite favorable to Dems in some places (i.e 91% Whitmer) but considering the fundamentals of the GOP candidates literally getting arrested, Whitmer's strong 2018 performance, and relatively good approval and poll numbers, I could see why a model would output that.

WI and KS are also a bit suprising; perhaps incumbency advantages and approvals skew things? After that, it seems relatively reasonable though def favourable to Dems

Making a statistical model is hard, trust me I've done it myself. The reason it trickly is because you know the polls could be slightly skewed (i.e the Warnock + 10 poll) but how you get a model to objectively be able to tell that poll is BS just becuase YOU think it is.

Their 2018 Senate and House forecasts were relatively decent all things considered and their 2020 model held up better than a lot of pundits though still slightly overestimated Ds. Even in 2020 House they still rated races like CA-25 and CA-21 as tossups even as many had written those off and generally didn't buy into the MASSIVE D House wave narative.

With the resources out there, the 538 model is as good as it gets, especially when a lot of the resources a model is reliant upon are flawed.

Also remember they aren't taking into account any polls for KS yet. It's like back in NY-14 in 2020 when Rose was favored like 80-20 but then a A-Rated poll came out that had Malliotakis up so he dropped by like 25.

[Senator Incitatus]

The Governors forecast seems quite favorable to Dems in some places (i.e 91% Whitmer) but considering the fundamentals of the GOP candidates literally getting arrested, Whitmer's strong 2018 performance, and relatively good approval and poll numbers, I could see why a model would output that.

I think the main issue with Michigan may be that the top fundraiser by far and a few others are out of the race. Fundraising still has prospective value as a measure there, since the remaining candidates will have to make up for Craig's missing money, but it understates the retrospective strength of the remaining candidates, one or more of whom would have been receiving those funds if Craig hadn't been in the race.

I would expect Whitmer's numbers to come back down to earth a bit as the Republican candidate(s) establish themselves.

[here2view]

Is Connecticut's fifth district actually that much of a tossup? Would be bad to lose Hayes.

That's my district. It's relatively unchanged from the old map with rural areas in the northwest and more Democratic areas near Hartford and toward the Southern part of the district. Hayes won by 11 in 2018 and 2020 and is a good fit for the district. I would rate it Lean D.

[Minnesota Mike]

Which model do you prefer 538 Classic or Deluxe? Personally I like the Classic model, factoring in "experts" opinions kind of defeats the purpose of having an empirical model.

[SnowLabrador]

Which model do you prefer 538 Classic or Deluxe? Personally I like the Classic model, factoring in "experts" opinions kind of defeats the purpose of having an empirical model.

I agree.

[Minnesota Mike]

There are a lot of highly questionable probabilities and predicted vote shares in individual races, but it seems like the model is erring roughly equally in both directions, so the national projections seem relatively reasonable.

I know any model will spit out some questionable results on some races but some here are real head scratchers. For example in MD-06 the Classic model has David Trone winning only 20% of the time and the average margin R+6.8%. Really? In a Biden +9.8% district with an incumbent who has been willing to self fund as much as it takes?

[Chips]

The main issue with these forecasts is that most of the time they seem too biased toward incumbents. I highly doubt Evers has a 60% chance of winning, he could very well win but he's probably a slight underdog right now. Same with Kelly, I don't think she has a 40% chance of winning, maybe like 20% or something. It works the other way around too. I think Kemp is the favorite but I wouldn't quite put it at 85% chance.

[Pericles]

The main issue with these forecasts is that most of the time they seem too biased toward incumbents. I highly doubt Evers has a 60% chance of winning, he could very well win but he's probably a slight underdog right now. Same with Kelly, I don't think she has a 40% chance of winning, maybe like 20% or something. It works the other way around too. I think Kemp is the favorite but I wouldn't quite put it at 85% chance.

The problem is 538 made this mistake before. In 2018, their Senate forecast was skewed towards incumbent Democrats, partly because their fundamentals calculation was more favourable to them than the polls because it assumed incumbency would beat partisanship more than it did. That was an understandable mistake then because those incumbents won in a worse environment in 2012, but it could have been learned from. The fundamentals forecast now should then be highly weighting partisanship and not showing much of an incumbency boost or split-ticket voting.

[Annatar]

The senate model is clearly underestimating Republicans due to reliance on polls, the GOP has outperformed what the polls said in the Senate 4 cycles in a row, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020, in all 4 cycles the GOP won more senate seats than most projected, no reason to believe the polls have corrected for the bias.

[Brittain33]

The senate model is clearly underestimating Republicans due to reliance on polls, the GOP has outperformed what the polls said in the Senate 4 cycles in a row, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020, in all 4 cycles the GOP won more senate seats than most projected, no reason to believe the polls have corrected for the bias.

I know that’s true for 3 of the elections, but are you sure about 2018? I thought the results matched the polls in the Senate then - it was only Democrat hopium that was defeated.