Democrats Now Have a Seventy-Per-Cent Chance of Retaining Control of the Senate

… Because polls have better predictive value than fundamentals do, it would seem prudent to ask what an unadulterated poll-based snapshot of the Senate race looks like. … But can a snapshot of today’s polls really tell us that much about an election held eight weeks from now? As it […] Read more »

Registered Voter Polls Will (Usually) Overrate Democrats

… Polls of so-called likely voters are almost always more favorable to Republicans than those that survey the broader sample of all registered voters or all American adults. Likely voter polls also tend to provide more reliable predictions of election results, especially in midterm years. Whereas polls of all registered […] Read more »

Betting Markets Not Budging Over Poll on Scottish Independence

A poll published over the weekend suggesting that a majority of Scots will vote for independence Sept. 18 has both tanked the British pound and put the issue squarely in the international spotlight. … But political prediction markets, in which people bet on the likely outcome, are all about evaluating […] Read more »