A forecast Democrats won’t want to hear

About a month ago, John, Scott, and I were talking about the election. I opined that there was a one-in-three chance that the Democrats would keep control of Congress, a one-in-three chance that the Republicans would end up with a fairly slim majority and a one-in-three chance that the Republicans would pull off a blow-out of historic proportions.
I didn’t write this on Power Line because it was a totally unscientific, seat-of-the pants assessment — the kind that John has been tolerating from me for decades, but from which I usually spare our readers. Moreover, the election was three months away.
I’m happy to report, however, that Nate Silver, a statistician who crunches poll numbers for the New York Times (as of late) and who (as I understand it) pretty much nailed the 2008 election, has reached the same conclusion I burdened John and Scott with.
Silver writes:

Republicans have a two-in-three chance of claiming a majority of House seats in November, [our] forecasting model estimates. And their gains could potentially rival or exceed those made in 1994, when they took a net of 54 seats from the Democrats. . . .
According to the model, Republicans have about a one-in-three chance of winning at least 54 seats, their total in 1994, and nearly a one-in-four chance of gaining at least 60. . . .On average, the model predicts a net gain of 45 to 50 seats for Republicans.

These days, I believe that the Republicans have a better than two-in-three chance of gaining control of the House. But I’ll defer to Silver’s analysis for now.
SCOTT adds: See also Jay Cost’s “The forecast for November,” from the new issue of the Weekly Standard. In addition to forecasting the net Republican gain in the House, Cost crunches the numbers in the gubernatorial and Senate races to be decided on November 2.

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