{"id":226,"date":"2018-01-19T14:25:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T19:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/almostclassical\/?p=226"},"modified":"2025-01-11T16:53:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T22:53:04","slug":"are-democrats-senate-chances-in-2018-overrated-fivethirtyeight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/2018\/01\/19\/are-democrats-senate-chances-in-2018-overrated-fivethirtyeight\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Democrats’ Senate Chances In 2018 Overrated? | FiveThirtyEight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Democrats face a steep climb in 2018, in both the House and the Senate. It\u2019s easy to over-estimate the Trump Effect on 2018 elections, I believe. There clearly was no Obama Effect<\/a> in favor of Democrats during Barack Obama<\/a>\u2019s term in office, and maybe the inverse will prove true. Elections might be more localized than nationalized during the midterms<\/strong>. It seems, based on polling of Republicans and GOP<\/a>-leaning independent voters, they care more about specific issues and party loyalty than they care about Donald Trump<\/a>. They are a loyal base, even with an unpopular leader.<\/p>\n

In my last post on The Map vs. The Wave<\/a>, I wrote:<\/p>\n

Right now, I\u2019m anticipating the House within five seats for Democrats and a Senate margin of two seats for the GOP. But, that estimation can and will change and after primary elections give us actual nominees with better polling data.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am less and less certain about the House margin tilting to the Democrats as polls have started to appear in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. I live between Pittsburgh and Youngstown and the local ads remind me of the run-up to 2016: heavily pro-GOP independent group expenditures are already dominating the airwaves. With a pro-GOP blitz on the airwaves, that indicates some confidence that some seats that might have switched parties are now returning to their bases.<\/p>\n

If the House starts to lean GOP, it follows that the Senate is even more problematic for Democrats. As Nate Silver<\/a> explains, the\u00a0worst scenario for Democrats would be localized races<\/strong>. Then again, the Republican voters nominated Roy Moore for the Alabama special election. Local doesn\u2019t ensure the GOP base won\u2019t toss an individual seat to the Democrats. But, all things being equal, here is Silver\u2019s analysis:<\/p>\n

Are Democrats\u2019 Senate Chances In 2018 Overrated? | FiveThirtyEight<\/a>:
\nJAN. 10, 2018 AT 8:31 AM
\nBy Nate Silver<\/p>\n

I built a simulation program in which \u2014 unlike in a traditional Monte Carlo simulation<\/a> where each race is assumed to be independent from the others \u2014 I can crank the correlations up or down as much as I want. If I assume that the races are totally uncorrelated<\/strong> \u2014 how the Democratic candidate<\/a> does in Nevada has nothing to do with how the Democrat fares in Arizona \u2014 Democrats\u2019 chances of taking over the Senate are only about 1 percent<\/strong>, according to the simulation. If I instead assume the races are perfectly correlated<\/strong> \u2014 if you win one \u201ctoss-up,\u201d you win \u2019em all \u2014 Democrats\u2019 chances are 50 percent<\/strong>, by contrast.<\/p>\n

But neither of those assumptions is realistic. Although it\u2019s important to account for some correlation, Senate races are a long way from being perfectly correlated. Sometimes the candidates can matter, as we saw with Jones and Roy Moore in Alabama. And the most competitive races this year are a somewhat eclectic mix of vulnerable Democratic incumbents (such as Missouri\u2019s Claire McCaskill), vulnerable Republican incumbents (such as Nevada\u2019s Dean Heller), and open seats (such as in Arizona).<\/p>\n

A good rule of thumb for Senate races is that roughly half the uncertainty stems from local factors and half comes from national factors. If I encode that assumption into the simulation, it comes up with a 22 percent probability of Democrats taking over the Senate based on the race ratings<\/strong>. That isn\u2019t nothing, but it\u2019s a long way from the even-steven battle that conventional wisdom now seems to assume.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we assume the Democrats have a 22 percent probability of capturing the Senate as of right now, that\u2019s not nearly as close as the pundits are suggesting in media coverage.\u00a0Right now, I\u2019d be shocked if the Democrats flipped both chambers. If they won the House by more than two or three seats (a five-seat gap, maybe), I would also be surprised.<\/p>\n

An echo chamber among progressives and media elites might be creating an overly optimistic atmosphere \u2014 one that is as disappointing as the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not hoping for a Democratic victory in 2018 so much as a GOP loss, at least for the social conservatives. The GOP badly needs a reboot, but it is representative of its base. The primary voters of both parties are a problem for moderates, but the GOP has had more problems as evidenced by Trump\u2019s nomination. The GOP base doesn\u2019t seem to be conservative in any positive sense of the word.<\/p>\n

The Democrats need to consider a shift to the middle, nationally, but they cannot offend their base voters, either. Yet, if Democrats come up short in November, the base might demand even more leftward drift in the party.\u00a0Democrats need appeal beyond urban voters in the ten states with half of the United States\u2019 population. If the Democrats win only the largest states, they will be forever limited to a Senate minority.<\/p>\n

Photo by howard_morland<\/a> <\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democrats face a steep climb in 2018, in both the House and the Senate. It\u2019s easy to over-estimate the Trump Effect on 2018 elections, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":7,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,34,8],"tags":[156,176,244,246,290,100,144],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data","category-media","category-politics","tag-2016-election","tag-2018-election","tag-fivethirtyeight","tag-models","tag-nate-silver","tag-senate","tag-voting","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/03\/AC_Banner_Gray_1200x630.png?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivL7-3E","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}