In Defense of Nate Silver

It's Nate Silver's job to analyze the news—so it must have come as quite a shock to him today to find himself become the news. While criticism of Silver has been out there for a long time, its most recent form has cut straight at the heart of Silver's analysis and represents the same type of anti-intellectual fear that has followed trailblazers like him around for centuries. In a surprisingly acidic POLITICO article, Dylan Byers makes Joe Scarborough's case against Silver and his data-driven polling analyses:

"So should Mitt Romney win on Nov. 6, it's difficult to see how people can continue to put faith in the predictions of someone who has never given that candidate anything higher than a 41 percent chance of winning (way back on June 2) and — one week from the election — gives him a one-in-four chance, even as the polls have him almost neck-and-neck with the incumbent."

Critiques of this ilk betray an inability to even speak intelligently on the subject of statistics, let alone a leg to stand on when presenting a counterargument to the findings of Silver's trademark Electoral College–predicting model. As I write this, Silver and his model give Barack Obama a 74.6% chance of victory on November 6. That number is very prominently labeled on Silver's website as "chance of winning." There's not much ambiguity in that. It should be obvious to anyone looking at that figure that what that means it that, in the judgment of the model, Mitt Romney has a 25.4% chance of winning the presidency.

But Byers, in the passage quoted above, clearly misses that point. Nowhere does it say that those 74.6%-to-25.4% figures are a prediction that Obama will win or that Romney will lose. It is an attempt to take a snapshot of the data and figure out odds. As Silver told Byers in the POLITICO article, there is still a significant chance that Romney wins—indeed, specifically, a one-in-four chance. If Romney wins, the model was not necessarily wrong. Indeed, every fourth time the model was run (Silver runs 10,001 simulations per day), Romney did win—and it's not a contradiction to say so while still handicapping Obama as the favorite.

Scarborough and, apparently, Byers seem to have a problem with this, but they don't seem to understand that this is the scientifically responsible way of doing this sort of thing. There is an academic discipline known as statistics, and they've been doing this a whole lot longer than any of us. Silver and others trained in this fickle art adhere to time-tested tactics such as the scientific method, gathering as-large-as-possible sample sizes, and acknowledging and even embracing the possibility of error.

In a world of post-debate insta-polls and Senate race rankings that are either Lean Democrat or Lean Republican, we as a society place a huge emphasis on "calling" states, elections, World Series, you name it. Audiences want instant gratification, and pundits give it to them with iron-clad predictions that they finalize and stick to come hell or high water.

What makes Nate Silver so unique—and so valuable—is that he resists that entirely (and yet still manages to be popular; imagine that!), favoring instead a scientifically responsible spectrum. The core tenet of this method lies in the difference between a 49% chance of an Obama win and a 51% chance of an Obama win. For most pundits, those are opposite predictions. On a spectrum, they're virtually identical. Given that it only takes a two-percentage-point swing to make up that difference, that's the right way to think about it.

Likewise, a spectrum always leaves room for some doubt. Even very safe predictions have a small chance of not happening, and a probability spectrum is honest about that fact, setting 99% or 99.9% odds for a very likely event. In other words, a good scientist always leaves room for the possibility that anything from extreme X to extreme Y will occur; the trick of creating a utile spectrum is knowing where to fix the "tipping point" between "lean X" and "lean Y," not picking one or the other. The beauty of a good probability spectrum is that it allows for every possibility. That's because the chance always exists, however small, that something extremely unlikely (e.g., a Romney landslide) will happen. In that sense, spectra like Silver's model will always be accurate.

And maybe that's the problem; skeptics see Silver's model's tolerant spectrum as wishy-washy—an attempt to take credit for being accurate no matter what the outcome. Science has one word for these people: "Tough." We have no choice but to accept this little ambiguity in our lives, because we have no way of ever being certain about anything. I understand that that is unsettling for many people, but that's what being a scientist—or even just being intellectually curious—is all about.

It also doesn't help matters that the exact figures and contours of a probability spectrum are impossible to prove. No one can ever say for sure that, on October 29, Barack Obama had a 74.6% chance of winning the race, even if Romney does win in that landslide. All we will know is the binary outcome: did Obama win or not, and by how much. It takes a much broader body of work to "prove" (to the extent anything can be proved) that those odds were correct—a body of work that, sadly, we'll never have. (You'd need the 2012 election to duplicate itself in future elections exactly the same way through October 29 a few hundred times, then see who won in each of those cases. In laboratories, these types of experiments are possible. Not in political science, where this is only the 57th presidential election in American history.) The best Silver—or anyone mortal in the whole wide world—can do is make an educated guess based on the data we do have. You may criticize which data—which polls or which economic variables—get plugged into Silver's model; you may not ignore science or the discipline of statistics.

Yet people do. People rely on their "gut" more than on the data in many more fields than just politics, and Silver has been dealing with them his whole life. As an early employee of Baseball Prospectus, Silver invented the PECOTA system and was an early figure in baseball's sabermetrics. He and co-Moneyball-ers tried to bring a rational, data-driven approach to predicting baseball the same way he has done in politics—and met with the same uninformed ridicule.

Baseball is full of the same "anti-statheads" that have come out of the woodwork in politics recently. You know them as the people who think of pitchers' wins as still a valuable statistic. They're the ones that denigrate WAR by saying that a better measurement of skill is actually how many wins you generate above a replacement level. They believe in momentum in baseball, in "clutch" hitting, and in the idea of lineup protection just because their experiences have led them to.

(Note: I'm painting with an extremely broad brush. In fact, I would like to see more rigorous statistical study on each of those last three. And you can indeed have a reasonable argument with other baseball experts or fans about those things—as long as the argument is empirical and grounded in data and facts, not "general impressions.")

The anti-Silverites in politics we see today are the descendants of the meanest versions of that baseball old guard: the old-timey scout who believes stats and innovation have nothing to offer him; the longtime columnist who bullies and mocks statisticians as "eggheads" or "binder boys." These people are as closed-minded as Nate's probability spectrum strives to be open-minded. The best analysis, and the best predictions, will inevitably come from viewing all available data and considering them holistically. As HardballTalk head blogger Craig Calcaterra says, quite astutely I think, if you worked in any field other than baseball and stubbornly ignored new information and new technology in your job, you'd be fired. Any field other than baseball or politics, I guess.

Maybe it's my wishful thinking, but it seems to me that those people in baseball are, fortunately, becoming more and more marginalized. Unfortunately, though, that's what makes those critics in politics much more dangerous—they are actually "important" pundits who are taken seriously. Indeed, in baseball, people can be as ignorant as they like, but the only real damage they're doing is taking up column inches and maybe, just maybe, encouraging a stupid trade to go down. In the powerful field of politics, ignorance can have a real effect on policies or the next leaders of the United States. They're playing with fire.

That's all the more reason to make sure Silver's voice of reason isn't drowned out. Unfortunately, Nate has caught onto the fact that many people in politics are jerks, and it may hasten his "retirement" from the field of political forecasting. (This most recent incident can't have helped.) But with Nate gone, unlike in baseball, the statistics-ignorant crowd will have won out, and political observers and the viewing public will go on thinking that the tools of ignorance are an acceptable forecasting model for elections.

I happen to roughly agree with Nate's prediction on the outcome of the presidential race, but losing his crystal ball is not even close to the reason his departure would sting. Rather, it's the loss of the reasonable, data-driven approach that he represents and has brought to the fields of baseball, politics, and others. Silver stresses that prediction is an imperfect science that he's just trying to make sense of, not solve. He is a student of the science of prediction, not a prognosticator per se. As he likes to say, it's not about which predictions are right, but rather which are less wrong. Instead of trying to eliminate error like those pundits and their iron-clad predictions, he truly does embrace it and see its value in helping improve subsequent forecasts. He's enhancing the study of predictions and helping us understand how to make them better—a goal that's bigger than elections, in some cases even helping to save lives.

Anyone who has given Silver's New York Times blog a more than cursory read recognizes all this, because Nate goes to pains to point it out (undoubtedly stung by ignorant would-be statisticians before). This isn't weakness, or being "unmanly," as it was distastefully put this week. It's realism and nuance, two traits that are essential for level-headed people in any field—only when it comes to predictors, they're basic qualifications.

Introducing the Baseballot Gubernatorial Rankings

With only two weeks left to go before Election Day, I considered the other day the relative lack of attention that governors' races are getting this cycle. This is hardly a new phenomenon for the relatively few gubernatorial elections that take place in sync with the presidency, but it is an unfortunate one. Governors, along with state legislatures (whose electoral prospects are fascinating but, alas, I will not have time to address before November 6), affect people's day-to-day lives in the states in question arguably more than the Senate and president will. Accordingly, I wanted to devote some more space on my little corner of the internet to assessing the 11 gubernatorial races of 2012.

At the top of the page, you'll see a new tab, "Gubernatorial Rankings," added to the menu. Click through to see my race rankings for the 11 campaigns in the same chart form as my Senate rankings. The scale is also the same—Solid/Likely/Leans for each party, explained in detail here.

Because of the relatively few number of gubernatorial races, however, I figured I could devote a little bit of time to a qualitative analysis of each one as well. In alphabetical order:

Delaware (Solid Democrat)
Sometimes, less is more. Democratic Governor Jack Markell is a popular governor in a blue state in a presidential year. His Republican opponent is not a big name. Easy hold.

Indiana (Likely Republican)
This could just as easily be Solid Republican, since there's no polling evidence that Democrat John Gregg is competitive against Republican Congressman Mike Pence. However, Gregg is a solid candidate who has been able to get active on the airwaves and has achieved some fame for his crazy moustache. With the competitive Senate race in Indiana, this at least could be closer than the GOP blowout it otherwise would be.

Missouri (Likely Democrat)
Governor Jay Nixon has proven to be a very strong candidate for the Democrats, winning over solid crossover support despite a rocky beginning to the cycle. Furthermore, whether hurt by association with Todd Akin or just falling flat of his own accord, Republican Dave Spence—oddly, in my opinion—hasn't been able to tap into Missouri's growing GOP base of support.

Montana (Tossup)
Sparse polling hasn't given us many clues about who's favored in this race. Montana is a reliably red state in the presidential race, but a close race for Senate and its love for outgoing Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer has made it swingier this cycle. Schweitzer afterglow would probably be responsible if Republican Rick Hill loses this one to Democratic Attorney General Steve Bullock.

New Hampshire (Tossup)
A true swing state on every level (president, Senate, both House seats, and governor in 2012), New Hampshire has a popular Democratic governor who is retiring. I would have thought that that fact, plus a weak (in my opinion) Republican candidate in Ovide Lamontagne (he was Kelly Ayotte's Tea Party nemesis in 2010), would create an advantage for Democrat Maggie Hassan, but polling so far has been tight—with the two candidates seemingly playing hot potato with the lead with every poll that's released.

North Carolina (Likely Republican)
North Carolina may end up the only state where the corner office changes party control in 2010. Republican Pat McCrory is well positioned to win thanks to an unpopular Democratic incumbent, up by double digits in most polls. Ironically, though, Democrat Walter Dalton's status as lieutenant governor—meaning he's won statewide before—is the only thing preventing me from ranking this as Solid Republican. Wild card: will Romney's withdrawal from North Carolina hurt McCrory?

North Dakota (Solid Republican)
Call it Delaware in reverse: Republican Governor Jack Dalrymple is very popular, and an unknown Democrat is just not going to overcome him and Mitt Romney.

Utah (Solid Republican)
One of the reddest states in the country electing its governors in presidential years? No wonder Utah hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1980. Republican Governor Gary Herbert is safe.

Vermont (Solid Democrat)
Vermont, along with New Hampshire, elects its governors every two years. While Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin won office in a squeaker in 2010, this year will be much friendlier to Democrats. That's been borne out by polling showing Shumlin clearly in the lead over Republican Randy Brock.

Washington (Leans Democrat)
This is the heavyweight battle of 2012—Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee in a blue state against moderate Republican and sitting Attorney General Rob McKenna. Washington hasn't elected a Republican governor since 1980, but if anyone is going to do it, it'll be the extremely strong and likeable McKenna. He led in pollsfor much of the spring and summer, but as voters have been reminded of the presidential race and their preference for national Democrats, Inslee has taken a slight lead. While most of his leads remain in the margin of error, various pollsters have all been consistent about saying Inslee is the one with the edge lately, so I will too.

West Virginia (Likely Democrat)
This seems like it should be safe for Democrats, as current Governor Earl Ray Tomblin was able to win a special election in 2011 when the national mood was still very anti-Democrat. However, there has been no polling in the race, leaving it a bit of a dark horse. West Virginia has identified with the Democratic Party for decades, remaining faithful to it on the state level even while voting consistently for Republican presidential candidates. Tomblin is the right kind of pro-coal Democrat whom Romney voters won't hesitate to support, but Republican Bill Maloney should have to only subtly shift Tomblin's public image to make him look much more like one of those hated "Washington liberals." If that happens, you could see a 20% shift of voters from Tomblin to Maloney en masse. Right now I see Tomblin winning this race by about 10 points, but the tables could suddenly turn. One sure prediction: in this presidential year, it won't be a close one; the most Democratic Romney-compatible candidate should be able to dominate.

Introducing the Baseballot Senate Rankings

Too much attention is paid to the presidential race, and the dozens of polls in each swing state make it too difficult to create any stable kind of ranking. The race for control of the House, meanwhile, has far too many unknowns and, with 435 races, is a far too ambitious project for only eight weeks out. Therefore, here in 2012, in Baseballot's first election cycle of existence, I have decided to issue my personal rankings for the race for control of the US Senate, which are now available by clicking the appropriate tab above.

I initially issued these rankings over Twitter a couple weeks ago; there has been only one change, which I also tweeted about today. That first announcement (a soft launch, if you like) prompted a good round of debate and discussion with some followers, and I encourage readers to do the same thing with the rankings now that they are posted in full on the site.

Bringing the rankings off Twitter and into a somewhat more institutionalized form allows me to do a few things. First, it lets me display them in a more creative way—at least, as creative as my Excel-chart-making skills will allow. Second, it lets me explain my thought process to you in more than 140 characters.

As you'll see by clicking the link, each race is organized into a row and a column. The columns represent which party currently holds the seat; the rows represent my ranking of the competitiveness of that seat. As a result, you can see at a glance (a) which party stands to win the seat in question and (b) which party may potentially stand to lose it. In this case, the chart demonstrates how the "tipping point" of competitiveness lies squarely on the Republican side; that is, there are no Republican-held seats where Democrats have the advantage, while Republicans are looking good in some of the races in the left-hand column. In other words, Democrats are playing defense.

One of the most important features of the chart is the fact that, while the x-axis (current ownership of each seat) is necessarily a binary, the y-axis is more of a continuum. Specifically, I have ordered the races, from top to bottom, from most Democratic-leaning to most Republican-leaning. This is because, despite the usefulness of labels such as "likely Republican," they can also be misleading—these things are on more of a "percentage-likelihood-of-winning" sliding scale. Put another way, I do not believe that Wendy Long (R-NY) has the same odds of winning as Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), despite the fact that they are both in the Solid Democrat category.

This has another useful visual side effect. If and when I update the chart, you might see some of the races move up or down in the ranking—or you might instead see the rankings move up or down the chart. The former would be if an event shook the odds in a specific state—for example, if the Republican candidate makes an offensive comment about rape. The latter would occur if the national electoral landscape appears to move in a more Democrat- or Republican-friendly direction.

As for my methodology—I regrettably do not have the numerological chops of Nate Silver, who in my mind has the last word in electoral rankings at any level and whose predictions and analysis I respect greatly. As a result, my rankings go more with my gut than with any statistical formula. (Naturally, however, my gut is informed significantly by polls, my assessment of the quality of those polls, and other both qualitative and quantitative race analyses that I read in publications and online.) You'll notice that I've used the widely accepted format of "Solid/Likely/Leans." To me, "Solid" means there is simply no evidence that that party can lose that seat. "Likely" means that I acknowledge that the seat is in play, but in my heart of hearts I don't see it going to the other party. "Leans" means I believe a race could reasonably go either way, but I have identified enough of a tilt that I'm comfortable making a call. And, finally, "Tossup" means I simply have no freaking idea.

I will make one observation about my formulation of the rankings. You may come to notice, as I have, that I tend to be conservative in my assessment of each race. By this I do not mean that, in a fit of either optimism or pessimism, I tend to be more bullish about Republicans' chances; I mean that my rankings tend to take the long view and be slow to change. I will not be adjusting the chart if one poll comes out showing a drastically changed race; I will treat it as an outlier until more polls prove otherwise. Even if a few polls in a given week show the complexion of a campaign to have changed, I'll usually hold off in switching the ranking until I can confirm that it wasn't just a temporary "bounce." I tend to believe that the picture painted over a broader sample size, on a more consistent basis, is the more reliable one. Indeed, I'll even take this to the extreme sometimes—if polling is showing a neck-in-neck race in a state that usually displays a strong partisan tilt, I'll be skeptical that those voters are really leaving that partisan past behind. This is why, for example, despite most polls showing Scott Brown in the lead, I continue to consider Massachusetts a Tossup; in a state where President Obama is likely to hit 60% of the vote, I simply consider it a tall order for Brown to win over 10% worth of ticket-splitters. (The reverse of the Massachusetts case is true in Indiana and North Dakota, which I see as Leans Republican but which polls show as tied.)

For those of you not curious about the individual subtleties of each race, I've provided the rankings' bottom line in the final column on the right of the chart: the number of projected Democrats, the number of projected Republicans, and the number of tossups. Currently, I foresee—as I have for a few months now—a complete tossup for control, with 48 seats looking blue and 48 seats looking red. That leaves four Tossups, which, if you take the definition of "tossup" literally, figure to split evenly between the two parties. That creates a Senate tied up at 50, with the future vice president (currently likely to be Joe Biden) the tie-breaking vote. (Given the conventional wisdom that Angus King will caucus with the Democrats, I've included him in the Democratic total for now, but it is certainly possible that in a truly tied Senate he would sell his services off to the highest bidder.)

Anyway, as has been said, the rankings have been added as a permanent addition to the site via the tab above. Check them often, as I anticipate they will change, and enjoy!

Reading Way Too Much Into the Latest Missouri Senate Poll

Despite their feelings about "The Wave," Public Policy Polling has a well-deserved reputation as the most "fan-friendly" pollster around. By this I mean that they have an active and amusing Twitter presence; they're generous and transparent with their data; and they give the people what they want, most recently turning around a Missouri Senate poll only 24 hours after Republican candidate Todd Akin claimed that "legitimate rape" doesn't result in pregnancy. PPP's poll, conducted Monday night, found that Akin remained ahead of incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill 44% to 43%.

Prior to Akin's mega-gaffe, my personal assessment of the race had been that it leaned Republican. After his comments, I commented on Twitter that I believed the race had shifted—to "teeters Republican," reflecting my opinion that the fundamentals in Missouri still favor Republicans but that Akin had brought them precariously close to the brink of defeat. I've since been surprised by the volume, speed, and intensity of the wrath that has come down on Akin, as well as the boldness of predictions from highly credible pundits that the incident would dramatically shift the electoral landscape in McCaskill's favor. In finding a virtually tied race, then, the new PPP poll—while hardly the final word on the matter—was reassuring in the sanity it seemed to restore. Gaffes—short of performing the Nazi salute—don't just erase candidacies overnight.

In their blog post on the most recent poll, PPP rightly points out that Missouri's, and the country's, increased polarization means that even major campaign revelations have a minimal impact on the horse race; voters are simply too dug into their respective sides to budge. (We see that with the remarkably consistent numbers in the presidential race too.) A direct comparison to the last time PPP surveyed a McCaskill/Akin head-to-head reveals almost no change—from Akin 45%, McCaskill 44% to the current Akin 44%, McCaskill 43%.

However, that poll was conducted in late May—before Akin's gaffe, sure, but also before the Republican primary, before the health-care ruling, before a lot of things. So that does leave plenty of room for the possibility that there has been volatility in the meantime—specifically, that Akin built himself a solid lead after May, only to see it evaporate in the past couple days after shooting himself in the foot. While we can never know for sure, a dive into the crosstabs of the two PPP polls provides some clues.

First, what may be most obvious (and what PPP themselves point immediately to) is Akin's favorability rating. Democrats and liberals dislike him and always have—but among McCain voters, his favorability went from 34/10 in May to 40/39 today. In other words, even Republicans who are getting to know this guy aren't liking him. However, they are still voting for him, at a 70/10 clip. This is hyperpartisanship in play and suggests that, while the incident didn't come without an effect, it isn't necessarily translating into people's votes.

To see movement in that arena, a better crosstab to look at is gender; Akin's comments were, after all, consistent with the "war on women" meme. Back in May, Akin didn't suffer from much of a gender gap. Among women, he trailed McCaskill 45% to 43%; among men, he was ahead 46% to 44%. Yet today, unsurprisingly, tells a very different story. If women were the only voters, Akin would currently lose to McCaskill 49% to 39%. However, Akin is up 50% to 36% (!) with men, even after Legitimate-Rape-Gate.

While I have no trouble believing that the cratering support of women is linked to this scandal, it is doubtful that Akin's "legitimate rape" claim actually boosted his support among men. (Interestingly, men were actually more likely to say that those comments were inappropriate and to "strongly disagree" with them, according to the survey—by about 10 percentage points!) Therefore, something else must have changed in the months between polls.

The simplest theory is that, sometime between May and August, Akin's support among men ballooned while his support among women did not—then, this weekend, his support among women took a major hit, resulting in the disparity we see today. Indeed, given the gender splits on the appropriateness of Akin's comments, it's very possible that his already excellent statistics with men were even better before this controversy. If you assume that his support among women had remained split evenly down the middle until the "legitimate rape" incident—a reasonable assumption, given that those stats moved in the "right" direction between polls—that would be enough to have given Akin a sizable overall lead had PPP polled the race just a week or two ago. While they are different polling firms and a direct comparison is impossible, this jibes with the picture of the race painted by Mason-Dixon in late July. That poll found Akin ahead of McCaskill 49% to 44%.

Maybe, then, Akin did take a statistically significant hit from his controversial comments about rape—and if you're a Republican, it has to be worrisome that that's just after one day of fallout. But since we made an assumption that the gaffe accelerated Akin's current gender gap, this may just be an instance of a mathematical identity. What actually seems like a safer conclusion to draw is that, whether Akin has experienced a drop in the past few days or not, he does not have much further to fall. The political crosstabs reveal that Republicans are loath to abandon their candidate, even if they despise him, and that McCaskill can't count on picking up more support there. Meanwhile, the gender crosstabs reveal that virtually every non-Republican woman is already voting against him. Other, traditionally strongly Republican slices of the population will have to start abandoning Akin for his support to fall below its current threshold. Unless McCaskill can start making inroads with men and McCain voters, Akin should continue to be viewed as extremely competitive.

Bleeding Kansas

Electoral success can be a double-edged sword. If a political party is too dominant—to the point of pushing out the other major party (and therefore the other major dissenting voice)—new disagreements and new fissures inevitably pop up. In the worst-case scenario, it can lead to all-out intra-party war.

This is the situation that the Kansas Republican Party finds itself in today. In that state, Republicans control both US Senate seats, all four US House seats, the governorship, 92 of 125 State House seats, and 32 of 40 State Senate seats. However, this seemingly advantageous position has given way to an irreparable schism in the party between moderate Republicans, who claim the "establishment" mantle, and conservative Republicans, led by Governor Sam Brownback.

It has gotten so bad that, despite Republicans' overwhelming numbers in the State Senate, it is actually the progressives and moderates who control the chamber—a European-style coalition of the body's eight Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans who have evidently concluded that they share more in common with the average left than the hard right. Indeed, in Kansas, party labels don't even begin to tell the full story—something unique in American politics today.

With the moderate coalition in the State Senate the only obstacle to enacting Governor Brownback's deeply conservative agenda (e.g., union busting and spending cuts), the intra-party schism has turned ugly—a modern political equivalent of the pre–Civil War Bleeding Kansas. Enraged conservatives, accusing their moderate colleagues of disloyalty to the cause, have actively tried to purge their fellow Republicans from elected office. Similar to the establishment-versus–Tea Party dynamic in other states, it has resulted in many moderate-versus-conservative Republican primaries for State Senate across the Sunflower State. Yet Kansas has taken it to a degree that the Tea Party wouldn't dare; the bizarre scenes include labor unions draping their arms around moderate Republicans, Democrats actively campaigning and voting for the same, and conservatives attempting to tie "moderates" (who are still probably to the right of John McCain) to "socialist" President Barack Obama. Things are so heated that state senators representing roughly 70,000 people each are raising millions of dollars. (It doesn't hurt that the Koch brothers are based out of Kansas.)

It all comes to a head tonight—primary election night in Kansas. Because Republicans are overwhelmingly favored to win in most districts, and because Kansas state senators serve non-stacked four-year terms, tonight will determine whether the moderates or the conservatives control the Kansas State Senate until 2017. For Kansas residents, the stakes are high; for the rest of us, the state provides a fascinating view on the consequences of one-party control and the extremities to which the current trend of polarization can take us.

Polls close in Kansas tonight at 7pm local time—that's 8pm Eastern in most of the state, but 9pm Eastern in a small sliver on its western edge. Only the State Senate, where there are currently eight Democrats, 16 moderate Republicans, and 16 conservative Republicans, is in danger of switching control (but not, of course, parties!).

Here are the races to watch to see which faction will seize control. Because these things aren't really black and white, it's estimated that three or four conservative gains would be enough for them to seize power.

Seats Currently Held By Moderates

District 7: Kay Wolf (moderate) vs. David Harvey (conservative). This is an open seat; Senator Terrie Huntington is retiring. Wolf, who is a state representative already, is probably the slight favorite.

District 8: Tim Owens (moderate) vs. Jim Denning (conservative). Owens is running for reelection and is a big voice for the moderates, so the conservatives will love it if they can pick him off.

District 11: Pat Colloton (moderate) vs. Jeff Melcher (conservative). This is an open seat being vacated by moderate Senator John Vratil. It will be one of the more competitive races in the state.

District 20: Vicki Schmidt (moderate) vs. Joe Patton (conservative). Schmidt is the current Assistant Majority Leader, but because Patton has support from prominent conservatives like Secretary of State Kris Kobach, this will be another nail-biter.

District 22: Roger Reitz (moderate) vs. Bob Reader (conservative). Senator Reitz is lucky that Reader is splitting the conservative vote with a third candidate, Joe Knopp.

District 24: Pete Brungardt (moderate) vs. Tom Arpke (conservative). Brungardt is the incumbent here, while Arpke is a current state rep.

District 25: Jean Schodorf (moderate) vs. Michael O'Donnell (conservative). The catch here is that, if incumbent Senator Schodorf loses, Democrats would have a shot at a pickup here in November.

District 26: Dick Kelsey (moderate) vs. Dan Kerschen (conservative). Senator Kelsey is in less danger than some of his colleagues, but this race has still been targeted.

District 31: Carolyn McGinn (moderate) vs. Gary Mason (conservative). McGinn has been in the State Senate since 2005.

District 37: Pat Apple (moderate) vs. Charlotte O'Hara (conservative). Incumbent Senator Apple isn't the most moderate Republican in the Senate, but he is moderate compared to the extremely far-right O'Hara. This district leans Apple.

District 39: Stephen Morris (moderate) vs. Larry Powell (conservative). Morris is the current Senate president; needless to say, his loss would be a huge blow to moderates.

Seats Currently Held By Conservatives

District 1: Marje Cochren (moderate) vs. Dennis Pyle (conservative). People generally aren't taking Cochren's challenge to the incumbent Pyle very seriously, but this is a more moderate district—you could see Democratic crossover voting.

District 10: Tom Wertz (moderate) vs. Mary Pilcher-Cook (conservative). Pilcher-Cook is an incumbent seeking her second term. She is favored to win.

District 40: John Miller (moderate) vs. Ralph Ostmeyer (conservative). Ostmeyer is the incumbent here, and while he's considered the favorite, Miller has given a lot of his own money to his campaign.

Seats Created By Redistricting

District 15: Dwayne Umbarger (moderate) vs. Jeff King (conservative). Umbarger and King, both incumbent senators, were thrown together in redistricting. Umbarger is generally expected to win.

District 21: Joe Beveridge (moderate) vs. Greg Smith (conservative). This is a new district, but the member whose retirement made its creation possible was a moderate. Conservatives have a good chance of picking up this seat.

Politically, the Veepstakes Isn't Worth a Bucket of Warm Spit

I'm proud to count myself among the chorus of adherents to the scientific method even in non-scientific settings. To stereotype, in baseball, these people are the sabermetricians; in politics, they're the political scientists. Yet despite their rising profile and their many successes, their counsel and predictions are often ignored in favor of that of scouts and campaign operatives. Again, while this is a stereotype, these are the people who are more apt to draw false conclusions based on a perceived pattern from their years of experience.

We're treated to that every four years on the grandest scale, when at least one major party nominee chooses a vice-presidential running mate. Conventional wisdom among the media, political professionals, and basically everyone else holds that it's the most important strategic decision a campaign can make—capable of delivering the votes of entire demographics and, ideally, a vice-presidential candidate's home state in the Electoral College.

There is no hard evidence for this. What's more, there is no soft evidence for this. In fact, it has been demonstrated time and time again that there is no "home-state advantage" for a vice-presidential nominee's ticket. Consequently, while Mitt Romney may have his own very good reasons for picking Senator Marco Rubio or Senator Rob Portman as his number two, he should be careful not to do it thinking it gains him an edge in their respective home states (Florida and Ohio, two of the biggest swing-state prizes out there). Unfortunately, Romney is getting advice to the exact opposite effect. Not only does the media speculate endlessly about home-state advantage when it comes to a VP pick, but Republican insiders place a premium on it too. One Portman proponent drew the connection as starkly as it could be drawn: "He's from Ohio, and we need to win Ohio."

This assumption is fostered by a lot of anecdotal, and some scientific, evidence. Just this week, a CBS News/New York Times poll found that 26% of respondents claimed the vice-presidential nominee mattered "a lot" to their vote, and 48% said it would affect their vote "somewhat." Unfortunately for campaign operatives picking a VP, however, this is a long way from proof that their selection matters. It is one thing for people to say in the abstract that the bottom of the ticket is important; it is another to present them with different possible tickets (e.g., Romney-Jindal, Romney-Pawlenty) and see if that truly sways their opinion.

Indeed, few and far between are the polls that show an actual, concrete vice-presidential pick making a difference outside the margin of error. For instance, Fox News polled Ohio residents about a generic Obama-Romney matchup, but then asked about a more specific Obama-Biden vs. Romney-Portman matchup. The change between the two amounted to little more than noise in the data; the control resulted in a 45%–39% Obama edge, while the inclusion of the VP candidates made it 46%–40%. That's a one-point change for each candidate, and a net change of zero.

Similarly, in a poll of Florida, Public Policy Polling discovered that putting Rubio on the ticket actually decreased Romney's share of the vote by two points—from 45% to 43%. Worse, President Obama's share of the vote remained steady at 50%. Another rumored vice-presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, also barely registered an impact. He shaved one point off Obama's vote share and gave one point to Romney, for a 49%–46% race. And this was the most benefit given by any possible VP nominee that PPP tested! Not only does this show that a VP nominee changes very few minds, but it also pokes a giant hole in the belief that, even if the nominee does change minds, it provides an automatic bump in the nominee's home state. Yet the belief in the importance of the bottom of the ticket persists.

Granted, there are polls that show the opposite result—that is, a vice-presidential candidate making a difference. A May poll by Quinnipiac, for instance, was upheld as evidence that Rubio would help Romney eke out a win in Florida. But even that poll showed only a two-point boost with Rubio, with the article noting below the (e-)fold that that difference was within the poll's +/-2.4% margin of error. The point is that, for every poll showing the VP nominee making a difference, there is one that shows no effect—making the impact of vice-presidential selection basically inconclusive. Furthermore, if you can find me a poll that attributes a five-point bump to any vice-presidential candidate (and if you can, please send it to me), please also find for me the last time a poll in July accurately pegged the final margin of victory in November. Circumstances change, and literally hundreds of political events will intervene between now and then. It is a reach to assume that people reacting in July to the naming of a vice-presidential candidate carry that reaction with them for four months and have it continue to weigh on their vote on Election Day.

The reality is that people think that their vote is based partially on the VP half of the ticket. They think of themselves as making a thoughtful, balanced choice, considering many variables (of which the ticket is one)—so they tell a pollster that, yeah, it's somewhat important to them. (This is also the reason that political operatives think it matters.) But when they make that choice, how often is the vice-presidential nominee the tiebreaker? Or, realistically, how many people like most things about the Democrat but then decide to throw all that out the window because the Republican vice-presidential nominee is from their state? How much sense does it make to base your vote on the number-two guy over all of the factors to consider—which are about the number-one guy?

Indeed, most people who really like the number-two guy enough to be swayed to vote for him (or her) already like the number-one guy, too. In other words, they are already strong partisans or votes that are already in the bag—even if they didn't seem to be. I concede, for example, that a wavering evangelical could be reassured into voting for Romney by a solidly conservative pick like Chris Christie. (Indeed, these were the findings of a PPP national poll in April: "Christie's inclusion doesn't have a big impact with Democrats or independents but it helps Romney shore up the party base, going from an 82-10 lead with Republicans to an 86/9 one.") However, as Election Day approached, those waverers would have coalesced around Romney anyway, in a well-documented political-science phenomenon known as "coming home" to the base.

This overall theory lines up pretty well with the empirical findings of political scientist David W. Romero, who conducted one of the most definitive studies on the issue of the vice-presidential nominee and voting patterns. Reviewing the political-science literature, Romero found—as we did—that surveys of the individual voter gave the vice-presidential candidate a lot of weight, but that that impact disappeared when looking on the aggregate level—removing from the equation individuals' "rationalization" of their vote. He divided up the factors that influence electoral decision-making into two camps—those pushed from the campaign to the voter (e.g., ads) and those intrinsic to the voter (e.g., partisanship). However, he found that most of the campaign-generated persuasion was geared toward the presidential candidate. The little that was related to the VP candidate tended to be grouped around the summer, which another study tells us is almost irrelevant to November (campaign ads during the summer just don't have the "half-life" to continue to influence people months later). As a result, the only way the vice-presidential nominee can influence a voter is by appealing to his or her intrinsic factors; or, as Romero hypothesizes, "the voters’ evaluation of the vice presidential nominees is at best flimsy and impressionistic, and at worst simply a function of their predispositions." When he controlled for those predispositions in his study, he found that, no matter how much voters thought they were considering the VP nominee, it simply didn't switch any votes in practice.

If you don't trust Professor Romero, we need look no further than trusted election guru Nate Silver's simpler, more plain-English study concluding the same thing: that the vice-presidential nominee barely moves the needle in his or her home state. Silver took just about the most straightforward approach you can to this problem: he looked at how well tickets did in the home states of their VP nominees relative to their nationwide performance. His findings averaged out to a 2.2% bump for the hometown VP's ticket—not bad, but certainly not a game change. In addition, the historical range fluctuated everywhere between a 21.1% bump (John Nance Garner in 1932) and a 17.8% disadvantage (Joseph Taylor Robinson in 1928). In other words, the effect is wildly unpredictable.

Yet despite this mountain of evidence, there continues to be a massive disconnect between reality and perception when it comes to the selection of a vice-presidential nominee. That nominee almost never provides the requisite boost to put a state over the top for his or her ticket, and that state has almost never been the difference-maker in the Electoral College. Still, however, prognosticators today continue to talk about swing-state status as the hot-button issue in the veepstakes. Can they actually believe this to be true? With all the evidence coming down against it, and the almost complete lack of proof to support that belief in the first place, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to believe that a vice-presidential pick makes a difference in how people vote.

No, votes for the presidency tend to boil down to the very things you'd expect them to: partisanship, ideology, presidential approval rating, and, especially this year, the state of the economy. When it comes to Mitt Romney's choice of a running mate, the best advice for any presidential campaign continues to be, "Keep it simple, stupid!"

Previewing the Congressional Baseball Game

If you're not familiar with the annual Congressional Baseball Game, you might want to reassess being a fan of this blog. Since 1909, the two American pastimes of politics and baseball have combined on one summer night a year when Democrats and Republicans face off on the diamond. This isn't a casual softball game, either; the throwing is overhand, the uniforms are authentic, and the game is played in a major-league park. The GOP holds the edge in the all-time series (41–36–1, though there are several years for which we have no records), but the Democrats have won three in a row. Unfortunately, the game isn't taken seriously enough for anyone to keep a sabermetrician's database of detailed statistics (quick, what's Harry Reid's WAR?), but old-school scouts will still be able to tell you what to look out for:

Who will win? The most obvious question is also the one with the most obvious answer. Because it's the Congressional Baseball Game, and not the Congressional Baseball Best-of-Seven Series, one dominant pitcher is usually enough to clinch victory. This year, that dominant pitcher is Cedric Richmond, a Louisianan who will toe the slab tonight for the Democrats. Last year, Richmond led the Democrats to an 8–2 victory, and there's no reason not to expect similar results this year. The overall rosters for the two years are also very similar—a function, of course, of the fact that 2011 and 2012 share the same members of the 112th Congress. Historically, the same team tends to win both games of a given session (of the 35 sessions we have full records for, the odd-even doubleheader was swept 24 times). And, while I personally don't place much stock in the idea that a veteran, playoff-tested team is at an advantage in the World Series, it's worth noting that the GOP squad is still packed with many baby-faced Tea Party freshmen.

Will Cedric Richmond throw a no-no? Last year, Richmond took a no-hitter into the sixth inning before finally settling for a complete-game, 13-strikeout two-hitter. A former player at Morehouse College, Richmond is one of the best players the CBG has seen in a long time—and, well, these batters aren't exactly major-league quality. I suspect some history could be in the making tonight. That said, though, Republicans claim that they have learned their lesson from last year and have been practicing to hit Richmond's nasty stuff.

Will someone hit it over the fence? Legend has it that, of all people, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) is the only member to hit a legitimate, outside-the-park home run in the CBG, all the way back in 1979. Sadly, however, legend is wrong; while Paul was the first to do it, he was joined by fellow Republican John Shimkus (R-IL) in 1997. Still, two taters in 78 games (that we know of) is a pretty low rate, so Paul is probably deserving of his 2012 induction into the Congressional Baseball Game Hall of Fame. (Yes, there's a Congressional Baseball Game Hall of Fame.) But it does mean that, no, you are not likely to see any feats of Hamilton-esque proportions tonight.

Will there be any beanballs? Today, of course, is awkward timing for the Congressional Baseball Game; only nine hours before first pitch, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare), setting off alternating waves of jubilation and fury in the halls of the Capitol. While the CBG is meant to promote bipartisan fun, it certainly comes on a day and in an era of unprecedented political polarization. Will any of that animosity spill out onto the field? And if so, could the game itself be in jeopardy?

Finally, what does it all mean for November? Maybe the better question is what November means for the game; tonight may be your last chance to see many players, such as Thad McCotter (R-MI) or Joe Donnelly (D-IN), who are retiring or may be designated for assignment by the voters of their district. (Donnelly is actually running for Senate, though he faces an uphill climb.) But their replacements could be even better—Florida Republican Ron DeSantis, who hopes to be the next congressman from the Florida Fourth, is a veteran of the Little League World Series. As for what it means for November, interestingly, the team that wins an even-numbered Congressional Baseball Game has succeeded at capturing or retaining control of the House later that year only 39% of the time; for the Senate, it's only 37% of the time. Clearly, losing the CBG is a significant electoral motivator.

The Congressional Baseball Game is tonight at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. First pitch is at 7:05pm. Tickets cost $10 and are available at www.congressionalbaseball.org.