The more people who remember this on election day-- or understand it-- the betterNate Silver at FiveThirtyEight looks at the numbers and senses that a wave may be headed this way. He's so good he should get a crystal ball and start dressing like a gypsy. He's looking at polls-- "high-quality polls," he says-- that show Democrats with "a double-digit advantage over Republicans." And maybe that's because voters don't like someone who's not even on the ballot-- Señor T. Not on the ballot... but I'm sensing still the most relevant "issue" on the ballot, much to the chagrin of most Republicans who are on the ballot. Silver wrote that "the Classic version of our model gives them only a 1 in 5 chance of holding onto the House. Other versions of our model are slightly more optimistic for the GOP: The Deluxe version, which folds in expert ratings on a seat-by-seat basis, puts their chances at 1 in 4, while the Lite version, which uses district-level and generic ballot polls alone to make its forecasts, has them at a 3 in 10 chance. Whichever flavor of the forecast you prefer, the House is a long way from a foregone conclusion-- but also a long way from being a 'toss-up.' There are three questions that we ought to ask about this data. First, why have the changes in presidential approval and the generic ballot happened? Second, how likely are they to stick? And third, how much do they matter?"
• The statistics guys says "I don’t know," although he floats the possibility that "voters are tuning into the campaign to a greater degree than they had before-- and not liking what they see once they give Trump and Republicans a longer look."• Mr. Statistics says "Your guess is as good as mine" but also says he thinks his own 10.8% generic ballot advantage for Team Blue "is too aggressive" and is probably overestimating the swing. [I think he's dead wrong.] He also discusses "historical norms," despite having an ahistoric presidency.• "[I]t doesn’t take that much for Democrats to go from House underdogs to potentially taking 40 or more seats... If Democrats win the popular vote by “only” 5 to 6 percentage points-- still a pretty comfortable margin, but not necessarily enough to make up Republicans’ advantages due to gerrymandering, incumbency and the clustering of Democratic voters in urban districts-- they’re only about even-money to win the House. If they win it by 9 to 10 points, by contrast, they’re all but certain to win the House and in fact project to gain about 40 seats!"
His "Classic" model now projects a net of 37 seat gains for Democrats. Way too few and he's be moving that into the 40's by October and 50s by the end of October. Today I was just happy to see this one for Nebraska's 2nd district, metro Omaha-- basically an upgrade from toss-up to leans D:What about the contested California races Ted Lieu is working so hard to swing from Red-to-Blue? Here they are, from north to south. So we'll start in Washington, where Silvers' model is wrong in all three races with a red bias:There's nothing cooking in Oregon, so now we're down in California, starting with Ted's biggest long shot:I hope Silver is right about this one and that I'm wrong, but this is one where you need more than statistics. But... like I said, Silvers may have this right (though if I had to bet cash...)Then the other 2 Central Valley seat, Valadao's and Nunes'. He probably has Valadao's right and Nunes' isn't quite as dire as he makes it seem:OK, and here's where we start winning so much we won't be able to stand winning any more. First CA-25, Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and Antelope Valley:Except this one, where Cisneros, the lottery winner and an exceptionally bad candidate to begin with, is being successfully tarred as a woman-abuserAnd that leaves us with another long shot, but a long shot that has gotten better when Drunken Hunter and his wife were arrested-- like in season 2 of Ozark and indicted on a few dozen charges.I think Silver is giving Hunter too much benefit of the doubt and that the margin should be much narrower. In any case, Ted Lieu is doing a better job than all the other DCCC regional vice chairs combined-- by far. Here's a loving caricature Nancy Ohanian did of him after she met him a couple of weeks ago.
