What we do know for sure, it seems, is that we're seeing the most competitive races for House and Senate that we've seen for years, maybe forever. Predictions now have it that 78 seats are up for grabs.
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 ...
... Currently, the folks at Cook Political consider a total of 87 House races to be either toss-ups or to merely “lean” toward one or the other party. This is an unprecedented number in recent history. At a comparable point in the past six election cycles — that is, with about 25 days to go until the election — Cook Political had put the number of highly competitive races at between 34 and 56; this year’s figure is roughly twice as high. ...Nate Silver, NYT
What is eerie -- and exciting -- is this: "...a gain [for Republicans] of as few as 17 seats, or as many as 78, is entirely possible..."
In other words, as of today -- ten ten ten -- nothing is safely predictable about eleven two. Or, to put it another way, there's some work to be done if we want to make that 17 number our target.
