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Silver is a talented man.  Talented enough that what started out as a political statistics blog, FiveThirtyEight.com, has been bought and sold and expanded

fooled with a few times since its inception during the 2008 election.

His schtick, for lack of a better phrase, involves taking polling data, applying a bunch of additional statistical data to it (e.g. how far from the final election result each polling “house” tends to be, what the demographics and past voting performance in a particular state/district have been, what broader polling data can tell us about narrow questions, etc.).

The problem is, most people take a look at the “probability” percentages he assigns any outcome, and go into immediate excitement or despair.  So let me break down what Nate is telling you about Tuesday’s election:

Think of his probabilities as the sides on a die

Right now, according to Nate, Republicans have a 4-in-5 chance of holding the Senate, and Democrats have a 7-in-8 chance of taking the House.  What does that mean, exactly?

The easiest way to think about this is, for the Senate, take a 5-sided die (yes, I checked, they exist), and color four of those sides red.  Then take an 8-sided die (again, yes), and color 7 of those sides blue for the House.

You still have to roll the die.

That’s how probability works.  Selecting the number of chances, the number of chances each outcome has, and then taking the chance.

The Democrats have a slightly better chance of winning the Senate than Donald Trump did of winning the Electoral Vote while losing the Popular Vote

In 2016, the final probability Nate calculated for Donald Trump winning the election without taking the Popular Vote was 10.5%.

That…doesn’t sound like a lot, does it?  Well, tell that to President Trump.

70 percent doesn’t mean squat

If you look at Nate’s ratings of various races, 70 percent (or thereabouts) probability comes up in a lot of races.  That’s roughly the point at which a “normal polling error” (that is, an error the size of a poll’s “margin of error”) can throw it the other way.

If you want to think of something as, more-or-less, “certain,” that race needs to be north of 90 percent in Nate’s ratings.  But…

85 percent tends to mean multiple things have to go wrong

And Democrats are sitting at 87 percent probability, as of this writing, to take the House.  There are still scenarios where Republicans hold on (Nate explains all this here) but it would take an unusual polling error for it to happen.

Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski may become the most powerful politicians in America for the next couple years

If all goes exactly as Nate predicts, down to even the slight advantages (and it wouldn’t be the first time), we’re looking at a 50-50 split in the Senate, with the Vice President casting votes constantly.

That means Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the last real “independent-minded” Republicans left in the body, will be calling all the shots.  If Republicans want to get anything passed, they will not be able to lose a single vote (as the Vice President only votes in the event of a tie).

And, if Nate hits 100 percent again, Democrats are looking at losing North Dakota, while picking up Arizona and Nevada.  Republican efforts to pick off any other Democrats, including in Indiana, Missouri, Florida, West Virginia, and Montana, will come up short…again…if Nate hits 100 percent.

If there is a systemic polling error, Democrats have the momentum

Let’s get something out in the open real quick…

The polls have been accurate.  Even in 2016.  They were as accurate as they usually are.  So what happened?

We happened. We couldn’t make up our mind of who we liked enough to turn out and vote for (making “Likely Voter” modeling by the pollsters more difficult).

But the final election results came in within that general margin of error.  And things get messy when that margin of error crosses the victory line.  And it crossed for Trump in 2016.  Trump had the momentum leading into Election Day.

This time, Democrats do.  For the past few days, Democratic probabilities have been on a slow-and-steady rise in both the Senate and House.

Midwestern state capitols may throw a collective big, blue switch

Right now, the only state in the Midwest to have a Democratic governor is Minnesota.

However, if all pans out the way Nate’s probabilities show (again, a very very big “if”), Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio will join them.  And if you throw in the thought of a slight polling error again, Kansas and even South Dakota may go blue.

But, almost all of those races are super-super tight.  Of those eight races, the leader in four of them (Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas) has a probability below 60 percent.  That means you can more-or-less throw a dart at the board with those.

Don’t expect Nate to land another 100 percent performance

It’s not his fault, really.  It’s that Americans are growing increasingly polarized, and polarization affects turnout.  For some, polarization energizes.  For some, polarization alienates.

When you add in unlikeable candidates running campaigns (or even careers) chock full of controversy, that throws a wrench in public opinion making polling more difficult.

And if YOU can’t figure out who you like more, how the heck is Nate supposed to do it?

The post How to Sort Out Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight Data Leading Into the Midterm appeared first on The Midwest Guy.

misdemeanors,” such that he recommends criminal charges against

Trump in regards to his activities during

2016 election, Congress must

take it up, file Articles of Impeachment, and play the process out.

But what about in the meantime?

A lot of experts and analysts agree, the Mueller investigation is moving along more quickly than anyone expected.  Compared to the Cox investigation into Watergate, we’re practically moving at warp speed.

That may be why Trump just started work against the political side of the scandal investigation just last night.

“We have to keep the House because if we listen to Maxine Waters, she’s going around saying ‘We will impeach him,’” Trump told a crowd at his anti-White House Correspondents’ Dinner rally in Michigan last night.

It’s no secret that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has been playing for impeachment for months now.  And a Quinnipiac poll recently found that 70% of Democrats believe proceedings should be undertaken.

With Democrats keeping a 7-10% lead over Republicans in the “generic ballot,” and President Trump still hanging between 15-18 points underwater on his approval ratings in recent months, it’s not a crazy position to take.

But if Scott Walker’s past is prologue, it could be a strategic error.

As a quick recap, six years ago, Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisc.) made history, not just in Wisconsin, but in American politics.  Six years ago, Scott Walker became the first statewide politician to beat a recall.  And he did it with a clever tactic…

In early March 2011, just barely two months into his first term, having already convinced outgoing Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Wisc.) to cancel the Milwaukee-to-Madison high speed rail project he ran against, and having announced what would eventually become his infamous Act 10 against public-sector unions, polls were showing that Wisconsinites already regretted having elected then Milwaukee County Executive Walker over Democrat and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

As talk of recall ramped up, and eventually became an actual process that set up the real recall election, and it looked like Wisconsinites would get the Walker/Barrett rematch they wanted, Walker shifted tactics.

Instead of running against Barrett, Walker ran against the recall itself.  And it worked.

Walker’s team made the case to Wisconsin voters that recall should only be used for criminal acts, or other much more major problems, not for policy disagreements (even disagreements that were extremely unpopular and led to days of some of the most massive protests in Wisconsin Capitol history).  Wisconsin voters bought it.

That’s what President Trump is hoping for as well.

In playing the anti-impeachment-itself card, Trump is hoping that Democrats either will be too worried about the political implications to file Articles, or should they push them forward, will set themselves up for a heavy loss in 2020 should it fail to remove him from office.

Let’s be fair about something else as well: Impeachment is never politically, nor publicly, advantageous.  It didn’t do much for Republicans when they threw the book at Andrew Johnson, and it was politically disastrous when they tried it against Clinton (making him the first sitting president to gain Congressional seats in a second mid-term election).

So let’s talk strategy.

First off, Democrats should self-ban themselves from saying the word “impeachment” until the Mueller investigation concludes.  If Mueller finds evidence to support charges of conspiracy, fraud, or anything else along those lines, Democrats (or Republicans) must file Articles of Impeachment.

But…what if the strongest charge against Trump is Obstruction of Justice?  What if evidence Trump colluded with the Russian government isn’t strong enough to support chargesAt that point, it’s hard to say.  It may be more advantageous to raise holy hell over it, in hopes Trump resigns, or failing that, gets mudhole-stomped in the 2020 elections.  However, impeachment may not play well politically if Democrats can’t justify removing a sitting president for the first time in American history.

If evidence of conspiracy or fraud, as it relates to Russia, isn’t found, it will be a hard case to press that the investigation was worth having at all, undermining impeachment efforts resulting from it.  From there, it may be smarter for Democrats to just let Trump and his fellow Republicans wallow in their own mire they created for themselves, and crush them in 2020.

Impeachment, at that point, may not be popular enough to generate the kind of public support necessary to both see it through successfully (that is, with conviction and removal of Trump).

That’s because, just like the recall in Wisconsin, Trump and his (not all unintelligent) team will press his case against impeachment itself, and Democrats will be left holding the bag.

The post On Impeachment, Trump is Playing a Card from Scott Walker’s Deck (and That Should Concern Democrats) appeared first on The Midwest Guy.