Is the House in play now?
Sam Wang thinks it might be:
All of the arguments on this subject can and should be quantified. It’s just like last year’s Presidential race: is any of this punditry data-based? Today I start to outline a true prediction. I give a “toy model,” i.e. step 1 toward something more realistic. The toy model relies on a prediction of popular vote only. At the end, I start to add a little bit of complication. I invite you to add more complication in comments.
Provisionally, it looks like the following: In a little over a week, the shutdown has increased the probability of a Democratic House takeover in 2014 from 13% to as high as 50%.
The first number (13%) is is exactly as expected if House trends were following expectations from analysts’ conventional wisdom and political science research. But the shutdown, combined with the fluidity of gerrymandered districts, has added a highly unexpected twist. The 50% figure could swing back toward the Republicans, or it could go further toward the Democrats. For certain, it gives a measure of an unusually fast change in the national mood. Let’s dive in.
http://election.princeton.edu/
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