Nate Silver & Co.’s Take on the House of Representatives: CHART OF THE DAY
To know who will control the House, forget the national polls and zoom in on the five districts of PA-10, AZ-6, PA-7, NY-17, and WI-3. Nate Silver and co. see those five as having a 12% chance that seat #218 in terms of vote margins will turn out to be one of those five come November:
A Republican vote-share edge of 2.5% in the popular vote for translating that into House of Representative seats, or so Nate Silver and co. guesstimate. And the five most likely House seats to be #218? They are: PA-10 (Janelle Stelson vs. Scott Perry*), AZ-6 (JoAnna Mendoza vs. Juan Ciscomani*), PA-7 (Bob Brooks vs. Ryan Mackenzie*), NY-17 (Cait Conley vs. Mike Lawler*), WI-3 (Rebecca Cooke vs. Derrick Van Orden*):
Yes, I have done the natural thing, and I have subscribed to Nate Silver and co.’s “Silver Bulletin”:
At least for the next month.
Nate Silver cares, above all, about getting the percentages right—of getting 75% of his 75% predictions coming true. Thus he is the only person on the planet who does not succumb to wishful thinking in assessing American electoral politics.
And the House and Senate taken together? The guesstimates:
Nate is also very good on resisting the incredibly stupid framing of any of this as a “horserace”. Now this candidate is ahead—not that one—now this one again. That is not how it works. Overwhelmingly, the things that will turn out to have mattered and decided the forthcoming election have already happened. We just do not know what they will turn out to have been yet.