Anyone who has been following Nate Silver's projections for the House races this November knows that he doesn't see good things for the Democrats. But this morning he has an interesting article titled Number of Competitive House Races Doubles from Recent Years.
The title is a bit misleading. Because here's the opening paragraph:
The House forecast that we released on Friday establishes an over-under line for Republican gains at a net of 47 or 48 seats. But, as I noted at the end of the article, the confidence interval on this forecast is very wide. Its margin of error is about ±30 seats — meaning that a gain of as few as 17 seats, or as many as 78, is entirely possible — and there is a small chance of even larger or smaller gains.
Whoa!!!!! +/- 30 seats???? That's a HUGE margin of error.
Silver goes on to demonstrate how this election is different from the last 6 based on an increase in (1) the number of "toss-up" races, (2) the number of races contested by both parties (50 state strategy catching on?), (3) the number of candidates raising at least $100K in individual contributions, (4) the number of races with at least one poll, (5) the number of races with at least one poll showing it in single digits, (6) the number of races 538 has within single digits.
Silver then makes this point:
But whatever the reasons, the dynamics of the battle for the House are much different this year than in the recent past. Viewed in this context, the uncertainty that our model implies should be viewed as a feature rather than a bug...
Our model figures there is a very wide range of potential outcomes because that is the only responsible forecast. We’re not being meek or wishy-wishy: instead, we are firmly, boldly, affirmatively and happily embracing the uncertainty. This is not because of any intrinsic property of our forecasting model; rather, it is because of the particular set of circumstances on the ground this year.
Contrary to what so many in the media are indicating - this one's still too close to call. At least Nate is honest enough to say so.
Lets go out there and make sure that uncertainty breaks our way!