Polling guru Nate Silver has upgraded Democrats’ chances of winning control of the U.S. Senate in November’s midterm elections, with his forecast now giving the party a 75 percent probability of victory.
Silver’s FLIPR 2026 midterm election forecast, published by Silver Bulletin, previously classified Democrats’ chances as “Lean D” as their prospects of retaking the chamber improved. The forecast has now moved into the “Likely D” category, marking a further shift in the model’s outlook.
Silver’s model uses polling data and other indicators to estimate the likelihood of different election outcomes. Its probabilities are estimates rather than guarantees, and the outlook can change as new polling and other information become available, but the latest upgrade suggests the model increasingly favors Democrats in the battle for the chamber.
Yeah don’t count on it, vote vote vote.
Haha, I’ve seen this shit from Nate before
If it helps, in 2018, Dems had a major victory, and in 2022 the supposed Red Wave was far more of a Red Splash.
Today, the cult is far smaller. Partly due to the price of everything going up, partly because Trump’s core demographic have been meeting their life expectancy. The latter especially sooner as they’ve become so anti-medicine.
You can help tip the scales by voting Dem.
I remember reading the night before the election an article he posted about that. How the odds were similar to that of a game of Russian roulette. Sure, 5 in 6 chance there’s no bullet in the chamber. But 1 in 6 that there is.
This. He got put on a pedestal there and I think he’d have to do a lot to earn trust again after that colossal fuck-up.
Of course, it’s always possible it was not even close to his fault, and the election was just outright stolen.
I have issues with Silver too, but to be fair, an 80% likelihood should be wrong one time in five. If it always predicted the winner, the 80% figure would be inaccurate.
I think people confuse predicted chance of winning with predicted poll results, where 82% would indeed predict an unstoppable landslide.
Pretty sure that was the NYT. Silver had her at a 71% chance.
Trump’s odds of winning were 19%, similar to the 16% chance of the bad outcome in Russian roulette. I notice people interpret statistics more on the situation than the numbers.
You really should learn how statistics work. It’s a common problem. And not all of it is easy. But let’s round that down to 80% to make the numbers easier to understand: It means that if there are five universes where that election took place, four of them should go for Clinton and one should go for Trump. On average. Really, it’s more like if there were 5000 universes, not 5.
But assuming the prediction was correct - that’s still 20% of the time - one time out of five - that it was predicted to go how it went.
That is not shocking or odd or wrong at all.
Yeah; 75% from him sounds pretty worrying.
Just some reminders on polling and prediction models:
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Individual polls from reputable pollsters can be a barometer for a snapshot in time, but they may also be outliers.
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An aggregation of many reputable polls during the same period of time is a more accurate snapshot in time.
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Long-term trends can be very useful and give more extrapolative trajectories (e.g., the long-term downward decline of Biden’s aggregate national approval ratings and his steady decline in swing-states leading to a change in strategy and his stepping down).
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Still, such polls may not accurately represent fringe groups (though many pollsters compensate in a variety of ways).
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We shouldn’t just blindly follow the polls (blind-leading-the-blind mentality)—e.g., if the case is never made for something, then it never gets popular. Bernie Sanders heavily advocated for Universal Healthcare and we of course have seen an adjustment in polling instead of simply reacting to its initial unpopularity—but we also shouldn’t ignore trends.
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Polls don’t dictate what people do in the moment, or say or do later; instead, they’re an imperfect reflection of where they are at in the moment.
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Models and Projections like Silver’s with good odds doesn’t mean you still can’t lose, and it doesn’t prove his model is a failure. Just because there’s a 95% chance you don’t roll a critical failure doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. That’s only proven if on hindsight of many cycles of elections, where his accuracy holds up fairly well when including all races including congressional.
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Every advocate should have the mindset of trying to change polls to their advantage; this by active campaigning (canvassing, phone-banking, fundraising, etc.), change of messaging, etc. In this respect, again, the trend is more important.
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Context should always be considered when discussing polling. (e.g., in isolation, Biden’s debate could be considered, “just one bad night, and we can swing polls back,” without considering the long-term concern that was already present over his immutable vice — age/cognitive-decline.)
No matter what the polls say, winning, tying, or losing… Always and I mean always Register and VOTE. Not just this, but drag 3-5 other people to register and vote with you.
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Silver’s model
Is proprietary and has never been disclosed…
It’s essentially “trust me bro” and that includes if what he’s using today is the same as yesterday, let alone back when it worked.
never trusting his forecasts again
