Senate forecast update: Democrats up to 53 seats for the first time in four months

by: Chris Bowers

Fri May 28, 2010 at 11:00


May 28th forecast: Democrats 53 seats

The five polls from yesterday (and the Mason-Dixon poll from Nevada this morning, the Ohio poll this morning, and the two Daily Kos polls coming out today, which are included in the averages), have promoted a full Senate update this morning.  Polls are typically not conducted over holiday weekends like these, so it is quite possible that there will not be another update for another week.

Man, I wish someone other than Rasmussen had polled Wisconsin.  There are good reasons to think this poll is really hinky.

Still, the forecast is the best for Democrats in four months, and the situation will only continue to improve.  As we get closer to November, Rasmussen polls will occupy a smaller percentage of all polls.  With their 7% “house effect,” that will more than cancel out any switchover to likely voters.  This is because the current forecast is closer to the Rasmussen-only average than to the average of all other polls combined.  The closer the election, the closer it will move toward the non-Rasmussen forecast, as Rasmussen polls make up a smaller and smaller percentage of the overall polls.

While in most cases my projected primary winners are ahead according to recent polling, I made exceptions in the case of Nevada and Arizona.  I just can’t see Sue Lowden or John McCain surviving the teabagger wave, given their current weak positions.

Also, before anyone in the comments says anything, the win percentages are if the election were held today, not the projected win percentages for winning in November.

Finally, keep in mind that it is entirely possible for Democrats to improve their position in the Senate after 2010.  All that requires is 54 seats or more (to cancel out Ben Nelsen, Joe Lieberman, and Mary Landrieu), plus filibuster reform.  That is an achievable goal.

Today’s forecast only looks at general elections, but primaries will return to the forecast next week.  Today, I removed the primaries to provide a clear view of where the overall picture stands.

Senate forecast overview, May 28th
Dems GOP
Not up for election 41 23
Incumbent party safe 5 9
Sub-total 46 32
Current polling 6.67 15.33
Projected total 52.67 47.33
Notes: Because they caucus with Senate Democrats, Independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman are considered Democrats.  For now, Charlie Crist is considered more likely to caucus with Republicans, and as such is included in the GOP’s overall total.

The 22 Senate seats that might switch partisan control
The chart below looks only at a broadly defined definition of “competitive” campaigns.  Campaigns where incumbent party currently leads by 18.5% or more are considered “safe” and not listed.
State Democrat Republican Margin Current Dem Win %
Connecticut Blumenthal McMahon D 15.0 100%
Oregon Wyden Huffman D 13.5 100%
California Boxer Fiorina D 7.0 97%
Washington Murray Rossi D 3.0 83%
Wisconsin Feingold Johnson* D 2.0 77%
Ohio Fisher Portman D 1.0 67%
Nevada Reid Angle D 0.5 58%
Pennnsylvania Sestak Toomey R 0.5 42%
Colorado Bennet Norton R 2.0 23%
North Carolina Marshall Burr R 4.5 9%
Illinois Giannoulis Kirk R 6.5 4%
Missouri Carnahan Blunt R 7.0 3%
Kentucky Conway Paul R 8.2 2%
Arizona Glassman Hayworth R 8.5 2%
Iowa Conlin Grassley R 11.0 0%
New Hampshire Hodes Ayotte R 11.0 0%
South Carolina Rawl DeMint R 13.0 0%
Indiana Ellsworth Coats R 15.5 0%
Arkansas Halter Boozman R 17.8 0%
Florida M 16.2 R 33.2 C 35.4 0%
Delaware Coons Castle* R 20.5 0%
North Dakota Potter Hoeven R 47.0 0%
 

Chris Bowers :: Senate forecast update: Democrats up to 53 seats for the first time in four months
Notes:
  1. The methodology can be found here.

  2. * = Faces primary challenge, but currently either clear favorite or no polling available.

  3. The following polls are used in the above averages are not listed in the various links to Pollster.com and Wikipedia.:
    • Arizona includes Research 2000 poll from early May.

    • Connecticut includes recent Blumenthal internal poll

    • Illinois includes early May poll from We Ask America.

    • Kentucky includes recent Research 200 poll

    • Nevada numbers include the recent PPP poll on Republican primary, and the FMMM poll for general election.

    • North Carolina includes May 5th Rasmussen poll.

    • South Carolina includes mid-May SCIndex poll.

    • Washington includes recent Washington University poll.
Please let me know how you think the forecast can be improved.  Suggestions are always welcome.

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Senate forecast update: Democrats up to 53 seats for the first time in four months | 16 comments
PPP looks at moderates (4.00 / 2)
more evidence Dems aren’t losing the center::

The main reason Scott Brown was able to pull off a shocking upset in the Massachusetts Senate race earlier this year was that he beat Martha Coakley 55-41 with moderate voters. Just how rare of a feat is that for a Republican Senate candidate? There isn’t a single other one in a competitive Senate race we’ve polled this year leading with moderates- in fact with the exception of Florida the Democratic candidate is up by at least 8 points with centrist voters in every race.

The problem then is that conservative turnout is still projected to be relatively high. Jensen gives the PPP numbers for moderates in each race if you click through.


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

 
I don't think internal polls should be included. (0.00 / 0)
Even if they’re completely sound, they’re only going to be released if they’re good, so there’s an inherent bias.
 
I am going to test that (4.00 / 1)
Been doing a lot of travel lately, which makes it difficult to find time to delve further intoy forecasting research. But, I intend to check forecasting accuracy with and without internal polls, and to also test it with a “house effect” of +5 for the party that released the poll (five points is the historival house effect of internal polls that are released to the public). The latter will be part of a broader test of house effects and forecasting.

Whichever tests the most accurately for past elections is what I will use as my forecasts for this cycle. I want o make sure that whatever I do is based on thorough research, and so I need to test before changing the methodology (which is already well-tested.)

[ Parent ]  
Okay. (0.00 / 0)
Experimentation is always good.

I’m not sure (in general) about using past elections to figure out what works, though. Maybe it’ll work fine, but there’s an element of “fighting the last war” to it. What works best for past elections isn’t necessarily what’ll work best for future ones. For a very extreme example, predicting “Democrat wins by 7.2%” is a perfect method in 2008, but a crapshoot otherwise. Actual forecasting methods aren’t going to be that silly, but the same principle applies: you have no way of knowing whether a particular method works better for past elections because it’s actually better, or only because of random chance. You could end up over-optimizing your methods to fit what turns out to be just statistical noise in the data. A better way would be to use theory to predict what kind of forecasting methodology should be the most accurate in general, as applied to any election, and then you can use past elections as a kind of sanity check. (I.e., “I have reason to believe this would work better — does the available data refute it?”, and not “I’m not sure which is better, let’s see what would’ve worked last time”.)

[ Parent ]  
But what if all we have IS statistical noise? (0.00 / 0)
That’s the problem I see here in Nevada. Since R2K doesn’t poll regularly, we’ve pretty much been stuck with internal polls, Razzy, and the craptastic R-J/Mason-Dixon “poll” (which should pretty much be counted as a GOP internal poll, as their data still haven’t been proven as fully trustworthy). So why should Chris necessarily exclude all internal polls from his Nevada average, since most of the other regular polling done here is just as suspicious?

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.
[ Parent ]  
Rassmusen Wisconsin (4.00 / 3)
By using voting history in their “likely voter” model they eliminate the youngest eligibles. with our at the polls registration, Wisconsin always gets the nation’s top turnout from 18-21 year olds, and Feingold scores huge with this demographic.

I put Russ at 97% re-election.



This is a Test of the Emergency Free Speech System. This is only a Test. In an actual Free Speech Emergency, I’ll be locked up.

 
Kentucky (4.00 / 2)
I look forward to Conway’s % moving way up when that crazy Rasmussen poll, showing a 25% lead for Paul, falls out.  In the real world, the race is a toss-up.    
 
A practical Rasmussen effect (4.00 / 1)
People have been talking about the effect that Rasmussen polls have on setting the media narrative, but I think the more insidious effect is that it makes it facilitates Republican fundraising. A candidate that is down 10 points in reality but tied in a Rasmussen polls is going to be able to raise a lot more funds because he will be seen as viable – which actually makes him more viable.
 
It's Not Called "Hegemony" For Nothing! (4.00 / 1)
As Gramsci put it, each institution does its part, like a unit in an army, but in doing its part–as in the army–it serves to advance the whole.

“You know what they say — those of us who fail history… doomed to repeat it in summer school.” — Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent ]  
It's Nice To See The Metrics In the CA Senate Race Come Back To Reality (4.00 / 2)
The only reason Boxer ever even seemed to be in any danger was the hysteria of the Versailles narrative, and the tanker-loads of money the GOP candidates have been flooding the airwaves with.  This is much more true of the governor’s race, of course.  But when there’s nothing but conservative–and explicitly anti-liberal messaging going out day after day, week after week, and you know that the general election will be nothing like that, well, let’s just say that it was never a realistic environment to expect for the elections in November.

Now, about that last 3%…

“You know what they say — those of us who fail history… doomed to repeat it in summer school.” — Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

 
Who is "Potter" in North Dakota? (0.00 / 0)

 
See, I told you so! (0.00 / 0)
While in most cases my projected primary winners are ahead according to recent polling, I made exceptions in the case of Nevada and Arizona.  I just can’t see Sue Lowden or John McCain surviving the teabagger wave, given their current weak positions.

I guess I’m with you here. Now we can’t completely count Suzy Lowdown out yet, as she’s now spending her big Archon bucks to slam Ms. Obtuse Angle. However, Club for Growth is hitting back at Lowdown and I’m not so sure she can survive their attacks and Tea Party Express’ pro-Angle ad buys. And whoever emerges alive from the GOoPer primary probably won’t be able to survive Harry Reid’s “vaporizing” campaign in the general.

So no, Nevada won’t just easily turn red as the NRSC had imagined early this year. In fact, I think the DC pundits will be in for a major surprise come November. 🙂

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.

 
I expect a Selzer Iowa poll soon (0.00 / 0)
Usually the DM Register commissions an Iowa poll in May. I expect to see something shortly before the June 8 primary. That will give us a good sense of whether the R2K poll showing Grassley under 50 against Conlin was an outlier or a sign of a competitive race.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
 
we could easily end up with 55 seats (0.00 / 0)
which would be remarkable with unemployment as high as it is, the sucky appointments to our Senate seats in CO and IL, and Beau Biden flaking out in DE.

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
 
Yes, and we can thank Obama for the losses… (4.00 / 1)
He has turned out to be just more of the same. What a disappointment.  

Jack Lohman

http://MoneyedPoliticians.net

http://SinglePayer.info
 
Senate forecast update: Democrats up to 53 seats for the first time in four months | 16 comments

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