A Snapshot of the Race for the Senate

Nate Silver offers A Snapshot of the Race for the Senate.

"Our objective technique for forecasting Senate races is not designed to be applied until summer of the election year. (Before then, the polling is a little too rough, and there is too much uncertainty about the identity of nominees, for polling-based forecasts to be of all that much value.) So you will have to wait on those. However, I have traditionally issued subjective estimates of the probability of the parties winning each seat in advance of our objective numbers.

Basically, I’m looking at the same thing that other forecasters do: approval ratings, recent electoral history, candidate quality and so forth — and yes, I do look a little bit at head-to-head polls, especially if both candidates are well known.

I also tend to place more emphasis than most forecasters on the overall partisan makeup of a state. "

It gets more interesting after the table, but I'll continue to wait a while before getting to involved. A lot can happen between now and November.