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Franken edges closer in Minnesota
The Reaction —
... For more, make sure to read Nate Silver's latest take (a fascinating, if extremely wonky, analysis of recounts and error rates). ...
Franken Inches Closer
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire —
... Meanwhile, Nate Silver runs some statistical analysis on the pending recount and concludes Franken "is anywhere from the prohibitive underdog in the recount to the prohibitive favorite!" ...
More Quick Victories
Open Left - Front Page —
... so our path to winning that seat is obvious. Without any third party candidates, and without the assistance of Obama's turnout machine, Democrat Jim Martin is definitely the underdog in the campaign. However, it is far from over, and you can help out here. The Alaska and Minnesota Senate campaigns will be decided via counting and re-counting, and both campaigns should probably be considered toss-ups at the moment (Nate Silver breaks down the numbers for Alaska and Minnesota). So, we can still get the Employee Free Choice Act, too, even if the odds don't favor us ...
Franken continues to narrow the gap
Political Animal —
... , both sides are "fully lawyered up and ready to go." And who's eventually going to win this thing? Time will tell, but while we wait, Nate Silver crunches the numbers and explains what binomial distribution means. (It's more interesting than it sounds.) Long story short: Franken has a pretty good shot at coming out on top.— ...
Minnesota Race Continues To Narrow
Comments from Left Field —
... What is the probability of this happening? I don’t know, and I think it would only be responsible to say that Franken remains the underdog in this fight–Norm Coleman remains on the better side of the equation. But Nate Silver has done his typical numbers crunching thing to give us at least a glimpse at the kinds of odds we are looking at. ...
Franken Edges Closer in Minnesota
The Moderate Voice —
... Tribune (via Chait), and CNN now has it at 206.
Which is truly remarkable, given that almost 2.9 million votes were cast (or have been counted so far), including 437,389 for independent candidate (and Ventura supporter) Dean Barkley. As of right now — 3:30 pm ET — the totals are as follows:
– Coleman: 1,211,564
– Franken: 1,211,358
For more, make sure to read Nate Silver’s latest take (a fascinating, if extremely wonky, analysis of recounts and error rates). ...
Franken's Chances
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Nate Silver tries to do the math. His bottom line: Franken is anywhere from the prohibitive underdog in the recount to the prohibitive favorite...it's very important that Franken's deficit is is down to 221 votes, rather than the 700 or so that it appeared to be originally. Suppose that the Corretable Error Rate is 0.75%, and that Franken wins 50.5% of corrected ballots; we have him winning the recount 39.3% of the time under these assumptions. If, however, Franken had to make up 700 votes rather than 221, his win percentage under these assumptions would be ...
Worth reading... #mnrecount
SCSUScholars —
...on the recount is Nate Silver. Key observation: If, for instance, 25,000 votes or about 0.9 percent of the total are reclassified during the recount, than Franken's odds of winning are only about 7 percent. If only 0.5 percent of the total vote is reclassified, then his odds of winning are not much more than 2 percent.Silver argues for why more of the misclassified votes should go to Franken than Coleman (he assumes in the above that misclassified votes are equally likely to be Franken and Coleman.) Maybe so, maybe not. ...
Should Obama Go to Georgia?
The Stump —
... This is a tough call for Obama. Every Senate seat is quite precious, and if Al Franken really does pull it out, Martin could get Democrats to the magic number of 60 seats. (That number is overrated, of course, because Senate votes are rarely along straight party lines. But it would still be a major psychological prize.) But Obama must be understandably wary of sticking out his neck here and then losing. I suspect he'd want to go in knowing that the odds of success were pretty good. ...
Mike's Blog Roundup
Crooks and Liars —
In One Ear… Out the Other: Bush secretly gave banks a $140 billion tax windfall
Wired: Bush spy revelations anticipated when Obama is sworn in
Brad DeLong: On Larry Summers...
Senate Guru: Looking at GA-Sen through the prism of Veterans Day. Meanwhile, in other still undecided Senate races
Endless Simmer: White House Guessing Game: Who will cook for Barack??
ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: An increasingly clueless 'Dean'...NPR softballs for a liar...Oh look ...
In MN, Conspiracy Dogs Won't Hunt
The Atlantic Politics Channel —
... To be sure -- once the automatic manual hand recount starts -- errors should pretty much cancel each other out, in theory. But in practice, the elderly, the young, and the relatively uneducated tend to cast more undervotes. As Nate Silver notes, mere chance suggests that a Franken win is not beyond the realm of possibility. There's inherent subjectivity in the way election judges will determine intent -- even when there are bright line rules. But even if there's no conspiracy, Franken could pick up enough votes to win. Not the likeliest of scenarios, but with the way ...
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty Pushes Back On Voter Fraud Allegations
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... Anyway, Hannity, and also Colmes, talked with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, whose general read of the situation -- pre-recount -- was that there were statistical discrepancies that were cause for "concern." Without the relevant data on hand, I've no way of disputing whether Pawlenty's statistical analysis is right or not, but I would offer Nate Silver's sober takes ...
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty Pushes Back On Voter Fraud Allegations
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed —
... Anyway, Hannity, and also Colmes, talked with Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, whose general read of the situation -- pre-recount -- was that there were statistical discrepancies that were cause for "concern." Without the relevant data on hand, I've no way of disputing whether Pawlenty's statistical analysis is right or not, but I would offer Nate Silver's sober takes ...
Franken-Coleman Update: On to the Recount!
Firedoglake —
... Norm Coleman and his GOP stooges and fellow travelers at FOX and other media outlets knew full well that they couldn't stop the recount. So they're trying to lob false smears against it in order to undermine Al Franken's victory should he win (which got to be a lot more likely as Coleman's alleged lead shrank during the recanvassing) . How desperate are they to smear the recount? ...
Can Franken Win? Yes, He Could, Maybe.
TPM Election Central —
... Nate Silver calculated early on in this whole sordid process that it was actually quite difficult to figure out Franken's odds -- depending on the model used and the set of assumptions about those ballots, a Franken win was anything from a shoo-in to a lost cause. But a Franken victory, assuming the resolved rejected ballots break in his favor as everyone expects, it not out of the question. ...
Eric Hananoki: Coleman's Recount Shenanigans
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... of only .007%. Statistician Nate Silver wrote that the difference between a 200 vote lead and 700 vote lead is "very important," since overcoming a 200 vote margin is manageable while making up 700 votes is nearly impossible. ...
