With Election Day upon us, Nate Silver, the polling analyst famed for his accurate forecast of the 2012 election, has his final projections for hotly contested races in our region:
- Kansas Senate: Greg Orman (I) over incumbent Pat Roberts (R) with a 54% chance of winning and a 1% margin of victory
- Colorado Senate: Cory Gardner (R) over incumbent Mark Udall (D) with a 72% chance of winning and a 2% margin of victory
- Kansas Governor: Paul Davis (D) over incumbent Sam Brownback (R) with an 82% chance of winning and a 2.6% margin of victory
- Colorado Governor: incumbent John Hickenlooper over Bob Beauprez (R) with a 57% chance of winning and a 0.5% margin of victory
Nationally, Silver’s analysis predicts Republicans have a 72.3% chance of winning a majority in the U.S. Senate. As a statistician he bases his forecasts on analysis of results from multiple polls from many sources. Data on all races is available from the Senate Forecast Model and the Gubernatorial Forecast Model at the FiveThirtyEight website. Silver provide a summary view of the overall 2014 election and its historical context in his article “Is 2014 A Republican Wave?”.
