Democrats are scrambling to undo the public relations damage from a recent prediction by former New York Times statistician Nate Silver that the GOP will win big in upcoming elections and take back the Senate.
Mr. Silver, who now works for ESPN, is renowned for his accuracy. Over the weekend, he gave the Republican Party a 60 percent chance of taking back the Senate, clarifying the GOP would gain a total of six seats.
He also said that the GOP has a 30 percent chance of taking 11 seats.
“We think the Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber,” he wrote on FiveThirtyEight.com, the data-analysis website he founded.
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee executive director Guy Cecil said in a memo posted by Politico that Mr. Silver’s projections were premature, but acknowledged they aren’t to be taken lightly.
“We don’t minimize the challenges ahead,” Mr. Cecil wrote in the memo. “Rather, we view the latest projection as a reminder that we have a challenging map and important work still to do in order to preserve our majority.”
During an appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” he said Republicans would most likely win the Senate seats in West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana and Arkansas — a marked change from his his take in July that the battle for control of the Senate was essentially a tossup.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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