‘Blue Tsunami’ Possible for Democrats in U.S. Midterms... Odds of Senate Majority in the 80% Range

[Financial News] Nate Silver, a U.S. political analyst and election forecasting expert, said late polling results suggested that “a blue tsunami could be coming.” In other words, Democrats could win by a wide margin, going beyond a “blue wave” in which they take majorities in both the House and Senate.
On the 2nd (local time), Silver made the assessment after the latest poll released the previous day (the 1st) by The New York Times (NYT) and Siena College showed Democratic candidates leading Republican candidates in seven key Senate battlegrounds.
Silver said, “The NYT and Siena College have released what are effectively their final poll results,” adding, “The results are very favorable to Democrats, who are leading in almost all the Senate battlegrounds, including Texas, as well as in the related gubernatorial races.” He added, “The margins were narrow in some places, but Democrats were ahead by a substantial margin in others.”
Indeed, in its final poll, the NYT found Democrats leading the Republican candidate by 11 percentage points in Michigan, a key Senate battleground. They were ahead by 7 points in Texas, 5 in Kansas and 1 in Alaska.
Silver said the recent polling results showed that “Democrats can win even if polling error is relatively small.” He added, “Even if Democrats lose in a few places, there would be no complaints from Democrats if they flipped only the top five battlegrounds on the polling map—especially if they also won the Texas gubernatorial race.”
Silver acknowledged that NYT-Siena polls tend to produce results favorable to Democrats, but said his forecasting model accounts for pollsters’ individual biases. He projected that Democrats had a probability in the 80% range of retaking the Senate majority.
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