Why Democrats will keep the Senate: A contrarian analysis of the 2014 midterms

[jaysunb]

Unlike pretty much every other polling analyst out there – ranging from Nate Silver to The New York Times’s Upworthy to more traditional analysts, like Larry Sabato, Charles Cook, and Stuart Rothenberg – Sam Wang believes that the Democrats are likely to hold on to the Senate this year, indeed he currently gives them a 72% chance of holding on to the Senate. While this is certainly a contrarian point of view at the moment, it’s worth noting that Mr. Wang did accurately predict the outcome of every Senate election in 2012 and, while he hasn’t gotten the same press that people like Nate Silver have, his conclusions are at least worth paying attention to as we head into the final six weeks of the midterms.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Voices/2014/0831/Why-Democrats-will-keep-the-Senate-A-contrarian-analysis-of-the-2014-midterms

[babylonsister]

1. YES!

Ms. Maddow talked about Mr. Wang recently-let it be so!

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. I saw that show too! And please "let it be so"!

[Jim Lane]

3. Model-driven versus data-driven

In comments in the linked article, Wang touches on this point. There's more elaboration in this piece on electoral-vote.com, which uses strictly poll data and which is currently predicting that each party will hold 50 seats, giving the Democrats control through Biden's tie-breaking vote.

I agree with this conclusion by the author of the linked Christian Science Monitor piece:

In short, while there’s still a lot of time left between now and Election Day, the fact that the battle for the Senate is as close as it is suggests strongly that this is how things will remain for the rest of the election.