As Nate Silver reminds us: We gotta run all the way through the tape on Nov. 6
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Nate Silver has been issuing a lot of cautionary tweets lately about which party is likely to win which chamber (or both) and even about specific races, like the Texas Senate matchup between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz. There’s one thing Silver is crystal cAs Nate Silver reminds us: We gotta run all the way through the tape on Nov. 6
Nate Silver has been issuing a lot of cautionary tweets lately about which party is likely to win which chamber (or both) and even about specific races, like the Texas Senate matchup between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz. There’s one thing Silver is crystal clear about: journalists largely suck at this. “Media understanding about probability, margin of error and uncertainty is very poor,” Silver told the Washington Post. We've already seen the overblown hype about the GOP's Kavanaugh bump, which likely had more to do with Republicans simply waking up from a slumber to the realization that the midterms are upon us. Meanwhile Democrats have been activated and organizing for fully two years—it's been a constant, not a bump. But Silver's cautionary notes are worth heeding just three weeks before people hit the polls. At the moment, they amount to the following (some of which he tweeted Monday before the whopping third quarter fundraising figures were in): Probability isn't certainty Roughly a 1 in 5 chance exists that Democrats win both Senate and House Roughly a 3 in 5 chance exists that the GOP keeps the Senate but Democrats win the House Roughly a 1 in 5 chance exists that the GOP keeps both chambers Those numbers are taken from the output of the FiveThirtyEight model for the House and Senate. But Silver’s basic message based on what happened in 2016 is that neither of the one in fives should be outright dismissed simply because they have a low probability of happening. Unfortunately, the pundits and Washington journalists have a knack for exaggerating probabilities into certainties. Click here to volunteer this week to help elect Democrats near you! Want to do more? Please chip in $3 right now to help Democrats win both the House AND Senate! Read more