Nate Silver won acclaim for correctly predicting the 2012 presidential election. Karl Rove last his head on Fox News the night of he election when it became clear Silver was right in forecasting Barack Obama won a second term. Democrats loved Silver in 2012. Not so much now.
On Sunday, Silver posted his last predictions on the 2014 elections on his blog, FiveThirtyEight.com:
We think the Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber. The Democrats’ position has deteriorated somewhat since last summer, with President Obama’s approval ratings down to 42 or 43 percent from an average of about 45 percent before. Furthermore, as compared with 2010 or 2012, the GOP has done a better job of recruiting credible candidates, with some exceptions.
Democrats and Liberals spent most of yesterday picking apart Silver’s forecast. Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:
“Nate Silver and the staff at FiveThirtyEight are doing groundbreaking work, but, as they have noted, they have to base their forecasts on a scarce supply of public polls. In some cases more than half of these polls come from GOP polling outfits. This was one reason why FiveThirtyEight forecasts in North Dakota and Montana were so far off in 2012. In fact, in August of 2012 Silver forecasted a 61% likelihood that Republicans would pick up enough seats to claim the majority. Three months later Democrats went on to win 55 seats.”