You may recall that the NY Times has hired Nate Silver, the left’s poll wunderkind of 2008, but they seem to be having trouble accepting his analysis this year. Nate sees a 75% likelihood of a Republican take-over of the House. When we last checked in, we pointed out a few discrepancies between the NY Times expected result in some races versus Nate’s. It seems to have gotten worse.
Listed by the NY Times as “Leans Democrat”, followed by Nate’s likelihood of a Republican pickup.
CA-11, Jerry McNerney – David Harmer – 70%
FL-22 Ron Klein – Allen West – 62%
MO-4 Ike Skelton – Vicky Hartzler – 53%
OH-6 Charlie Wilson – Bill Johnson – 50% (kind of the definition of a toss-up, no?)
TN-4 Lincoln Davis – Scott DesJarlais – 69%
Listed by the NY Timers as “Tossup”, followed by Nate’s likelihood of a Republican pickup.
AL-2 Bobby Bright – Martha Roby – 72%
AZ-1 Ann Kirppatrick – Paul Gosar – 85%
AZ-5 Harry Mitchell – David Schwiekert – 72%
Fl-2 Allen Boyd – Steve Southerland – 90%
GA-8 Jim Marshall – Austin Scott – 63%
IL-11 Debbie Halvorsen – Adam Kinzinger – 95% (it’s a nail-biter)
IL-17 Phil Hare – Bobby Schilling – 60%
MD-1 Frank Kratovil – Andy Harris – 84%
MS-1 Travi Childers – Alan Nunnelee – 87%
ND-AL Earl Pomeroy – Rick Berg – 81%
NH-1 Carol Shea-Porter – Frank Guinta – 87%
NM-2 Harry Teague – Steve Pearce – 75%
NY-19 John Hall – Nan Hayworth – 72%
NY-23 William Owens – Matthew Doheny – 67%
OH-16 John Boccieri – Jim Renacci – 77%
PA-8 Patrick Murphy – Michael Fitzpatrick – 65%
PA-10 Christopher Carney – Thomas Marino – 79%
PA-11 Paul Kanjorski – Lou Barletta – 77%
SD-Al Stephanie Herseth Sandlin – Kristi Noem – 76%
WI-7 Julie Lassa – Sean Duffy – 79%
WI-8 Steven Kagen – Reid Ribble – 78%
WV-1 Mike Oliverio – David McKinley – 62%
In the “Leans Republican” category, only two races are listed by Nate at less than 80% likelihood of Republican pickup.
FL-8, Alan Grayson – Daniel Webster – 68%
PA-7 Bryan Lentz – Patrick Meehan – 74%
Overall, the Times current call is 155 solid D, 168 solid R, and 112 in play. Of the 112 in play, 48 lean D, 37 tossup, and 27 lean R. If we correct for Nate’s work by taking everyone above 80% as ‘solid R’ and between 60% and 80% as ‘lean R’, that should be:
155 solid D (I didn’t actually look at any of these)
Lean D – 40
Tossup – 20
Lean R – 17
Solid R – 200
Clearly the Times is deep in the cocoon, but I think even Nate is doing his best to minimize the upcoming tsunami. He’ll post the reality Nov 1st or 2nd in order to keep his record pristine; at FireFifty we are WAG-ing an 83 gross seat pickup and expect the 112th House to have more than 250 Republicans.
A little wishcasting by the NYT, I believe.
Come on, clap! Clap for Tinkerbelle!
Maybe, should the elections go as they appear to be headed, a short query to the NYT ombudsperson would be of high comedic value…
[W]e … expect the 112th House to have more than 250 Republicans.
67/290 and Barak Obama can play golf or pound sand for the next two years.
Ernst – C’mon, pounding sand is actual work, damnit.
i happen to know nate and while he is pretty liberal he is also an honest guy…i’m willing to bet the numbers are exactly what he says they are…though i would argue i think the likelihood of a republican takeover is more like 99%
OT:
Guess who’s coming to my little town, Billy Jeff. Three odd campaign stops stumping for candidates which by the latest polls are -19, +17, and +6.
Grayson is soooo toast. Rick Scott may even win the governorship, even though he’s a complete douchebag.
I’m not voting for him. I’ll vote for Daniel Webster, sure, but Rick Scott is a vampire, I swear.
I truly am convinced that on 3 November there’s gonna be a ton of people on the left in slack jawed amazement, groping for an explanation of just what happened.
Even in my small upstate New York locale there is an enthusiasm bubbling below the surface, and the yard signs certainly show Gibson dominant.
I further hope the results ensure the proggs wind up wandering the political wasteland for decades to come.
That’d be good times.
Maybe the Times is figuring, Well, it worked for Tinkerbelle!.
What you are forgetting is the old totalitarian method of ignoring stories against the party line. The networks and the NYT will be promoting only the races where Dems won big and those where they can call a Dem winning an upset no matter how close the polling was. They will have live shot from the candidates victory parties and run the other races in a scroll bar to say they reported it. Okay, a little over the top but you will see variations of this.