Current Senate prediction/forecast models
Fivethirtyeight: chance of Democratic control 46.2 (was 43.7%)
Upshot: 43% (was 49%)
Election Lab: 49.9% (no change)
HuffPost Pollster: 50% (was 53%)
Daily Kos poll explorer: 59% (was 55%)
Princeton Election Consortium (Sam Wang): 70% (no change)
Hey, and if that's not enough, Vox has even more.
Greg Sargent:
A public argument has erupted between two leading forecasters of the Senate battle — the internationally famous Nate Silver, and the little known Sam Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton who dabbles in election forecasting as something of a hobby. The battle is being treated as a bit of a sideshow — as a duel of dweebs.
But the underlying dispute between them is actually quite important, and has long term ramifications for how we think about polling and elections.
Today Silver kicked things up a notch with a broadside aimed at Wang, and in a conversation with me today, Wang responded.
Wang gives Democrats good odds of holding the Senate, while Silver still marginally favors Republicans.
In a nutshell, the dispute turns on the difference between their two models. Wang’s model is a “polls only” model that bases predictions on a median of all available public polling data. Silver’s model is premised on the idea that polls alone aren’t enough, and adds in a number of “state fundamentals” to his model, including the generic ballot, Congressional approval ratings, fundraising totals, the background and ideology of the candidates, and so forth.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Irin Carmon:
It’s no secret that a major prong of Democrats’ strategy for keeping control of the Senate this year is mobilizing female voters. That has meant explicit pleas on equal pay, minimum wage, and anti-violence legislation as well as reproductive rights. These days, Democrats can also cast a spotlight on GOP attacks on contraceptive access – from family planning funding cuts to Supreme Court-sanctioned attacks on insurance coverage to pay for contraception. Two states, including Colorado, are considering “personhood” amendments that would confer rights to fertilized eggs and fetuses.
But of course, most vulnerable of all when it comes to women’s health care is abortion. And that’s a word that, thanks to enduring stigma even among liberals, is still often a taboo topic on the campaign trail.
NY Times:
The people of Scotland decide Thursday whether national pride outweighs economic risk.
The vote on independence is taking place without any of the usual factors that drive the dissolution of great nations: no war, no acute economic crisis, no raging territorial dispute. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite: peace, a slowly recovering economy and a central government in London that promises to grant more powers over taxing and spending to the Scottish Parliament.
The Scots cannot claim they have not been warned about the uncertain and even dire economic consequences of splitting from the United Kingdom, on issues like the currency, investment, pensions and declining energy revenues from the North Sea.
AP:
The number of Ebola cases could start doubling every three weeks in West Africa, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, warning that the outbreak will cost nearly $1 billion to contain so it does not turn into a "human catastrophe."
Even as President Barack Obama is ordering the deployment of 3,000 U.S. military personnel to help provide aid in the region, Doctors Without Borders said the global response to Ebola has been far short of what is needed.
Declan Butler:
What about the risk of air travellers exporting the virus to other cities?
The ECDC also says the probability of an infected person getting on a flight in the first place is low, given the small overall number of Ebola cases. Moreover, functional health systems should be able to prevent onward spread from any exported cases. Overall, the World Health Organisation estimates that there is a high risk of spread to countries bordering those with existing outbreaks, a moderate risk to countries further afield in the sub-region, but that there is little chance of spread overseas. There is no reason to assume that an exported case — be it to Lagos, a city of 17 million people, or any other place — will spark new outbreaks, because Ebola is not highly contagious.
Wait, Ebola is hard to catch?
Though the strain of Ebola in the current outbreak appears to kill 56% of the people it infects, to become infected in the first place, a person's mucous membranes, or an area of broken skin, must come into contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, such as blood, urine, saliva, semen or stools, or materials contaminated with these fluids such as soiled clothing or bed linen. By contrast, respiratory pathogens such as those that cause the common cold or flu are coughed and sneezed into the air and can be contracted just by breathing or touching contaminated surfaces, such as door knobs. A pandemic flu virus can spread around the world in days or weeks and may be unstoppable whereas Ebola only causes sporadic localised outbreaks that can usually be stamped out.
HCPlive on that other virus making the rounds:
As Enterovirus D68 continues to spread across the US, the prognosis for children who are hospitalized with infections tends to be good. That applies to children with asthma, as well.
“It’s hard to say whether this virus is hitting kids with asthma harder than other viruses—but it is not causing as severe symptoms as other viruses out there, like adenovirus, “ said Christopher Carroll, MD, a pediatric intensivist and asthma specialist at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, CT.
“Even certain strains of rhinovirus are worse,” Carroll said.
We'll see within the week whether it's in
my area as well. Already improving in the KC and Chicago areas, it's like winter came early.
Danny Vinik:
When Minnesota running back Adrian Peterson was arrested Saturday morning for hitting his 4-year-old son with a switch, the reaction was mixed. Some were appalled by his actions. Many others expressed solidarity with Peterson. “Whipping—we do that all the time,” former NBA star Charles Barkley said Sunday. “Every black parent in the South is going to be in jail under those circumstances.” He's not the only one who thinks that way. As Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight found, approval of spanking as a disciplinary measure has fallen over time, but is still higher than 60 percent.
What do psychologists and medical researchers think about it? How does corporal punishment affect children’s well-being? To help answer those questions, we decided to ask an expert. Stacy Drury, a well-respected professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Tulane University. researches early childhood development with a focus on improving long-term health outcomes in children. We spoke Tuesday about Peterson, spanking and child abuse.
Laura Vozzella:
A solid majority of Virginia voters support expanding Medicaid to an additional 400,000 Virginians, according to a new poll.
Released Wednesday, the day before the General Assembly is due to reconvene in Richmond to consider expanding the health-care program for the poor and disabled, the Christopher Newport University survey found that 61 percent of voters support expansion under the Affordable Care Act and 31 percent oppose it.