Princeton Election Consortium model projects D+3 Senate control

[brooklynite]

Close watchers of politics sense that conditions are turning against Senate Republicans. Exactly when this began has been hard to tell by looking at individual polls. But a statistical aggregate clarifies the answer: the middle of April, at the same time as President Trump’s increasingly wild coronavirus-19 press conferences.

This graph tracks a snapshot of polls in all Senate races. It covers a 4-week* tracking window and is updated daily. It could be off a bit in either direction, but that offset does not change much over time. Therefore, looking at the direction of change, we can see that conditions have moved toward Democrats, apparently by about 3 seats.

*Full rule: N weeks or 3 polls in 2020, whichever is more data. N=4 through August, N=3 in September, and N=2 from October until the election on November 3. My rating of the race is included as the first poll, which then rotates out as real polls accumulate.

We use head-to-head polls between the likely candidate from each party. Where that candidate is not yet known, we chose the candidate that performs strongest. The median margin is divided by the estimated standard error to get a win probability (a long-tailed t-distribution, which allows for upsets).

The probabilities are all compounded to create a distribution of all possible outcomes. That histogram looks like this:



http://election.princeton.edu/2020/06/17/election-tracking-2020-part-2-the-u-s-senate/

[SoonerPride]

1. please please please

[unblock]

2. Dare we dream?

Before donnie completely botched covid, any senate control scenario seemed rather optimistic.

But 53 seats would be absolutely enormous. 50+vp gives us control, so 53 seats means republicans would have to turn *4* of us to defeat anything (assuming we get rid of the filibuster).

A 4-seat cushion would be huge as it would reduce the need to bargain with people like manchin

[lagomorph777]

3. That would be amazing and even leave a margin for any idiots who caucus with the Russiapublicans

You know who I mean.

How reliable are Princeton's prognostications?

[lagomorph777]

4. Note of caution on the method:

"head-to-head polls between the likely candidate from each party. Where that candidate is not yet known, we chose the candidate that performs strongest"

This means that in any remaining primaries, Dems have to show up and pick the strongest candidate. Out record of doing that is somewhat spotty.

[brooklynite]

5. In which States are we currently not picking the strongest candidate?

[lagomorph777]

7. "Our record of doing that is somewhat spotty."

I was referring to our record, and upcoming primaries, not any current picks.

[Wounded Bear]

6. The Repubs own internals predicted this in 2012...

with their "autopsy" after the Obama win.

They chose to double down on rascism and electioneering. We need an overwhelming victory this year to start fixing this.