Nate Silver's Last Call

Nate Silver, of the FiveThirtyEight blog, has published his last call, his final forecast of today’s senatorial elections.

In his words:

After two months of forecasting, it comes down to this: Republicans are favored to win the Senate. Their chances of doing so are 76 percent,according to FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecast, which is principally basedon an analysis of the polls in each state and the historical accuracy of Senate polling.

But they are not necessarily favored to have the race “called” for them on Tuesday night. Because of a variety of circumstances like possible runoffs in Georgia and Louisiana and the potential decision of Kansas independent Greg Orman about which party he chooses to caucus with, the outcome of the Senate may not be determined until days or weeks from now. The forecast refers only to the probability that Republicans will eventually claim control of the Senate by the time it convenes in January.

He adds that:

… the polls have moved toward Republicans in the closing days of the campaign — making their position more robust. The movement has been clearest in states like Kentucky, Arkansas and Georgia that typically vote Republican, suggesting the election may be converging toward the “fundamentals” of each state.

 If you prefer it in visual form, here's Silver's graph:

 

For further discussion, see Silver's extensive analysis of the data in his post.