Nate Silver Picks Udall To Win

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by: IndyNinja

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Nate Silver.

In one of his first posts since re-launching fivethirtyeight.com, Nate Silver picked Udall to win in the 2014 Colorado Senate Race, saying:

The GOP got the candidate of its choice in Rep. Cory Gardner, who declared for the race last month. That will prevent them from again nominating Ken Buck, the tea party candidate who lost a winnable race in 2010. (Buck has withdrawn from this year’s Senate race and decided to run for the U.S. House instead.) By our measures, Gardner is a decent candidate rather than a great one. He’ll start at a fundraising deficit to the Democratic incumbent, Mark Udall, who had $4.7 million in cash on hand as of Dec. 31, and he comes from a conservative district and has amassed a conservative voting record that may or may not translate well in the Denver suburbs. But Udall’s approval ratings only break even, and we give Republicans a 40 percent chance of winning his seat.

In rating the various Senate races, Silver and his team considered the national environment, candidate quality, state partnership, incumbency advantage, and available head-to-head polls.

Silver went on to predict that the GOP had a slight advantage overall, with North Carolina rated as a 50-50 toss up and set to decide control of the Senate in 2015. He did urge caution though, as many of these races will shift significantly depending on the results of primaries.

Silver explains that the Senate elections in years like this (seats which last had an election during an open seat presidential year, like 2008), the opposition is expected to have a major advantage, which in this case, should be amplified by the ongoing GOP advantage in off-years. So the fact the Senate battle is shaping up to be an even split, with neither side a clear front-runner, is actually great news for dems.

But we'll have to wait and see once primaries in states like Alaska have been decided for a truly clear picture of where everything stands.

Silver's run down of the 36 Senate seats up for election this fall:

15 thoughts on “Nate Silver Picks Udall To Win”

MichaelBowman says:

March 24, 2014 at 9:12 am

A great summary on the race. While there is no shortage of backslapping about a future Senator Gardner in the failed 51st state, once again they are faced the proverbial "math problem": 43,900 does-not-a-Senator-make

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mamajama55 says:

March 24, 2014 at 9:25 am

So if I'm reading Silver's graph correctly, he thinks that there are only two, possibly three blue states that have a real chance of going red: Alaska, North Carolina, and Louisiana, with three more seats which will elect Republicans unless strong candidates come forward.

Why the heck aren't South Dakota and Virginia putting up Dem candidates?

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1. MichaelBowman says:
  
  March 24, 2014 at 9:34 am
  
  Here's what's going on in South Dakota
  
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  1. mamajama55 says:
    
    March 24, 2014 at 10:24 am
    
    Good for the SoDaks! I hope Pressler wins.
    
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2. Andrew Carnegie says:
  
  March 24, 2014 at 10:07 am
  
  MJ, Alaska is a blue state?
  
  Silver sees the Dems losing 6 seats. That is on the low end of the range of most prognosticators, with 12 being on the high end. Udall is rated number 9 so it would appear it will be a close race.
  
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Andrew Carnegie says:

March 24, 2014 at 10:03 am

You might think Silver projects Dems to lose the Senate might be the story. Not here. Instead it is Udall is only the 9th rated Dem Senate seat to likely be lost and the Dems might not lose that many.

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1. MichaelBowman says:
  
  March 24, 2014 at 10:07 am
  
  I'll take that bet.
  
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2. IndyNinja says:
  
  March 24, 2014 at 11:11 am
  
  Actually, AC, if you look closely, you will see that Silver says that Dems have a better chance of winning in Louisiana than Republicans have of winning in Colorado.
  
  Whatever other pundits may be making predictions, I will trust Silver above any others. He has repeatedly proven his ability to analyze the lay of the land with far more accuracy than others.
  
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  1. Andrew Carnegie says:
    
    March 24, 2014 at 7:09 pm
    
    Indy, For some reason I think Landrieu, has a better chance than some of the others. I think SD,WV and MT are toast. I see Pryor losing but it is still up in the air. I see Begich losing but it is also still up in the air. I see Hagan losing before Landrieu.
    
    As to Silver I respect him, but it is rather far out and in some of the states polling is pretty sparse so there is not alot to work with.
    
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dustpuppy says:

March 24, 2014 at 11:03 am

Silver's dead wrong on how many seats will change. It will remain status quo. The Republican House of Monkeys will finally be cleaned out and the new progressively-led (no Pelosi for Speaker! Grayson for Speaker!) Democratic will lay out the groundwork for a New Deal, Part II. That means the end of pork. And many outposts will be shut down.

Domestic spending will be increased and a lot of CEO's will be in prison.

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1. mamajama55 says:
  
  March 24, 2014 at 11:31 am
  
  I like your vision…and, I'm an optimist, too, dp, but I do try to keep it real…
  
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  1. BlueCat says:
    
    March 24, 2014 at 1:07 pm
    
    Sometimes ( a lot, actually) I suspect that dustpuppy is a rightie (or perhaps dwyer… nah dwyer's too earnestly sincere no matter how clueless and insufferable) creation meant to illustrate how silly libruls are.
    
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2. MichaelBowman says:
  
  March 24, 2014 at 11:40 am
  
  @dustpuppy – a confession. I had a dream last night that you were on the front page of the Denver Post the day after the 2014 election, being made famous for a uncovering an election-changing 'bomb'. It only referred to you as "ColoradoPols contributor 'dustpuppy'. I have no idea who you are, but I'm expecting great things from you between now and November! Why it wasn't mama, or Duke, or Craig, or n-skinny is beyond me…but you are 'it'. Go get 'em….
  
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  1. Andrew Carnegie says:
    
    March 24, 2014 at 7:00 pm
    
    Michael, Dreaming about Dust Puppy? You got to get out more often.
    
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    1. MichaelBowman says:
      
      March 24, 2014 at 7:06 pm
      
      I get out plenty – and I'm confident enough in myself to share these anomlous events without fear 😉 (for the record,I have no idea who DP is, or whether" it's" a man or woman)
      
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