Quote (Pollster @ Sep 19 2014 07:06am)
No one said they were. You're actually just confusing (or conflating) two different set of assumptions: 1) where things stands now and 2) where things
would stand,
if the GOP lost KS. The odds of a GOP majority in the first case have been ~50% for months. The odds in the second case are much, much lower. As far as "backtracking" goes thanks for the laugh. One can follow the sequence of events pretty easily because I've noted several times how crucial the seat was and beyond that just how vulnerable it was to slipping away:
first here, then
two weeks later, then
one week after that and finally
yesterday. The commentary expressed in these posts is, as always, very consistent.
50/50 does certainly not turn to 0 on the back of 1 seat that was already a toss up when so many states are in play.
You were wrong. Admit it.
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Like I said there's a degree of universal swing in elections that can't be ignored. A Republican loss in KS would be representative of what's happening in other states to that very degree. Senate elections are particularly isolated events but most of the races do tend to move in the same direction, together, and in predictable ways.
Except not and I clearly told you why. A judge throwing someone off the ballot is not indicative of a swing in the countries electorate.
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Nothing about this is a technicality. Orman might caucus with the GOP but he'd do so on the basis that they have a pre-existing majority. A pre-existing majority without Orman is not a particularly likely outcome. Once more: a majority is no better than 50%-50% even if they have Roberts. Him losing would mean something. Republicans will not lose KS but win more hostile states barring race-defining events such as a Todd Akin-style gaffe occurring that fundamentally changes the races.
It isnt a technicality? Google what that means please.
I already explained to you in clear and unwavering terms why that could easily be the case.
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Most importantly: There is no "big 50." Orman could caucus with the Democrats to retain their majority even if the GOP reaches 50 seats. The GOP needs 51 seats either WITH Roberts or WITHOUT Orman. Now that that's out of the way, everything else you wrote is either flat-out incorrect or is incredibly far from certain.
COULD. Not "WILL".
The republicans can certainly take 51 without Kansas as well. The Math is right in front of you.
Montana, WV and SD turn red whether you stomp your feet or not. They need 4 more seats after that.
R are more than 2-1 favorites to take Arkansas and Louisiana according to some models. Less so in other models, but a lead nonetheless. (61% and 52% on huffpo)
Thats 6.
That means they need to win 1 measly seat in any of the tossups which include Alaska, Iowa and Colorado as the most likely suspects.
In those states both parties are withing a single point of each other according to the huffpo model.
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There's not a "lead building" in Alaska at all, it's debatable whether the Republicans have a lead period. The only "polls" that show them ahead aren't polls at all because they weigh for party ID. Actual
polls have Begich leading by narrow margins. This is very apparent in the aggregate [See:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2014-alaska-senate-sullivan-vs-begich]. There is a lead in Georgia but it is within the MoE and it actually shrunk; on top of that runoff dynamic keeps the race as a tossup. There's nothing about the four-way race in South Dakota that's a lock. Louisiana isn't a lock to swing
either way, let alone to the GOP. I myself noted how the race had moved in that direction
in this post but the race won't be decided until December and therefore will be heavily influenced by November.
I know you'd certainly like to throw out all discouraging results and pretend the democrats are winning or even in these states, but its simply not the case.
SD is extremely likely Republican. 90% on 538. Its an overwhelmingly Republican state with double digit leads in the polls.
I didnt say LA was a lock. I said it was going in that direction. Cassidy is crushing the democrat heads up in the most recent polls and it is very significantly more likely to turn red than not.
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They do not agree with your math or your characterization of the races. They don't even agree with one another about hardly anything. You can review what they recently projected
at the bottom of this post. I'll save you some time: they disagree with what you wrote and in some cases they disagree
entirely. In regards to the outliers' impact on the models:
they are the reason for the shift. The one model you cited explicitly stated that they were the cause for the noted shift [See:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-optimistic-numbers-for-gop-in-colorado-and-iowa/]. They and other outliers make up almost the entire difference between the new projections and those in the linked post.
The models do not agree with your claims. They don't agree with how many states are "leaning significantly" in the GOP's favor (especially when adjusting for said outliers) and they don't agree re: the GOP's odds if they lose KS. This is quite easy to demonstrate by going to HuffPo's model [See:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2014/senate-outlook] and moving the percentage sliders around in each race. After moving both CO and IA back to their pre-Quinnipiac outlier standing watch what happens as you slide KS towards the Democrats in the hypothetical situation.
The models don't agree with this either. One does (538) but literally every other model disagrees about Alaska. WaPo (70% Dem), UpShot (54% Dem), HuffPo (52% Dem), and the PEC (54% Dem) all have it going the other way, and that's
on top of the fact that the race is being artificially skewed towards the GOP on account of the party ID weighing by Suckmussen and YouGov mentioned earlier. That's the danger in making your case on the basis of what
one model says, especially when outliers or junk "polls" are presently having an outsized influence on the data. The models also disagree about how likely the GOP is to win Arkansas as well (HuffPo even thinks it's a tie) and the complications in Georgia still stand.
So some do and some don't agree with the exact percentages obviously, as I used the percentages from 1 model...
You cannot rightly say "hey these outliers are skewing the models thats why they show this" while simultaneously saying the model doesn't show it.
The fact of the matter is states like Alaska, Iowa, Colorado and Arkansas are very much in play for Republicans whether you want to link Democrat Senate Majority PAC saying its slightly in favor of democrats or the other way around.
A disagreement on the exact percentages in close races does not make what you said right.
There is a real possibility the Republicans win some of those states, and mathematically it would allow them to win a majority without Kansas.
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The Republicans simply cannot afford to lose Kansas unless they want to put their faith in a Black Swan. Of all the contested races there are only two that are more critical to the GOP trying to gain a majority than Kansas and they are West Virginia and Montana. Losing Kansas or any of the other contested races would really hurt their chances.
and WV and MT are locks.
You're back into your fairyland rhetoric of black swans and prayers.
Their hopes of a majority do not vanish completely without Kansas, no matter how many times you say it.
Their chances worsening without Kansas is NOT the same thing as being wiped out completely.
This post was edited by cambovenzi on Sep 19 2014 09:37am