The odds are clearer now that Republicans will likely win the Senate, says political analyst Nate Silver, of the website fivethirtyeight.com, who told ABC
"This Week" host George Stephanopoulos Sunday that he's predicting the GOP has a "73, 74 percent chance" of winning.
"Look, it's still a close election," said Silver. "You have six or seven or eight races that can go either way. All these races are being held in purple or red states too, so the bar isn't that high."
On
Silver's blog Saturday, he said that technically, who will win isn't quite clear yet.
"If Democrats win Georgia and Alaska and North Carolina, and Orman wins Kansas and caucuses with them, they’d hold the Senate even if Republicans flipped Iowa, Colorado and the five other Democratic-held seats where GOP candidates have an advantage in the polls," he said on the blog. "But that’s quite a parlay to pull off."
Silver does not believe the current GOP polling tide is anything like back in 2012, when Silver said it would take a systemic bias in the polls to make them all wrong. "We're not quite there," Silver said. "You can carve out a path for Democrats that goes through actually some red states, like winning in Alaska and Georgia and Kansas."
In those states, he said, "the polls are all close or ambiguous or both. But it looks like in the swing states like Colorado and Iowa, Democrats are underdogs. They're almost certainly going to lose at least four seats."
Meanwhile, Silver told Stephanopoulos, "Arkansas looks like it's going the way of the other states like South Dakota that are very red to begin with."
Silver is also predicting that in Louisiana, incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu will likely have a runoff election, giving her another month to campaign.
"But Democrats might have to bank on a runoff in Louisiana, a runoff in Georgia, and extending this campaign and winning some of those races as underdogs," Silver said.
The biggest factor in Tuesday's election, though, Silver said, is "the fact that people are not happy with either party. Is there such a thing as an anti-incumbent wave?"
As far as governor's races, Silver said, "probably a lot of incumbents from both parties lose or come close to losing."
To square the "moderately pro-Republican mood" with the anti-incumbent mood, you could "have a Republican like Pat Roberts in Kansas lose, even though Republicans have a good night ... So it's a multi-dimensional sort of election. Makes it a bit more complicated. But overall, signs look fairly poor for Democrats."
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