Let’s discuss Silver’s three models plus the betting markets.
How FLIPR Forecasts the Midterm Elections
FLIPR is the new acronym for Nate Silver’s Election Models.
Aug 11, 2026
FLIPR stands for Forecast with Leading Indicators, Polls and (Expert) Ratings.
- Lite derives as much information as possible from polls alone;
- Classic is polls + fundamentals;
- And Deluxe is polls + fundamentals + expert ratings.
Why forecasting midterms is hard
Compared with our presidential forecast, which mostly defaults toward being “polls only” by election day, FLIPR is more of an even blend between polls and fundamentals (and in Deluxe, expert ratings, though these have less influence than the other major components). This is both because non-polling data is richer for House, Senate, and gubernatorial races than for the presidency — there are around 500 races combined in each midterm, rather than just one presidential race — and because polling data is sparser. Many important House races receive little to no nonpartisan polling, for example, so we need other methods to forecast these races.
Basically, FLIPR seeks to estimate what a poll of a given race would say today if it were conducted on a likely-voter basis. In this way, it hopes to avoid relying on “stale” polling.
FLIPR also applies the likely voter adjustment to its averages of the generic ballot and presidential approval, which our regular averages do not. This makes a material difference. As of early August, for example, Democrats are up by about 6.5 points in our default generic ballot average, but that advantage expands to around 8 points after likely voter adjustments, which is the version that FLIPR uses. (The likely-voter adjusted version of the generic ballot can be found on the FLIPR landing page.)
Lite
The “Lite” version of our forecast is supposed to be “polls only”. But that creates a problem for races that have little or no polling. Our solution is to impute polling-like estimates for these races based on FLIPR’s calculation of the national political environment, and polling in similar races using an internal system we call CANTOR (Congressional Algorithm using Neighboring Typologies to Optimize Regression).
Deluxe
Every year, we have a debate about whether to retire the Deluxe version and stick to a model that uses purely objective inputs. Even though the expert ratings reflect other people’s judgments and not ours, there are some undesirable properties from including them. For instance, if experts are looking at Silver Bulletin forecasts to help calibrate their ratings, the entire process becomes somewhat recursive. Furthermore, in recent elections, the Deluxe version of our forecasts typically only “calls” one or two additional races correctly across the ~500 races we forecast every year compared to Classic.
Although the expert forecasts are good at discriminating between relatively stronger and weaker races for each party, they have a weird and persistent bias. Namely, expert raters tend to implicitly assume a neutral political environment (i.e., a generic ballot of about zero) until quite late in the cycle. As of early August, for instance, the unadjusted expert ratings imply a political environment of around D +2 versus the roughly D +7 environment calculated by FLIPR Classic. In a D +2 environment, a candidate like Talarico probably wouldn’t win despite Paxton’s weaknesses, but a D +7 would require much less overperformance.
FLIPR’s predecessors have always been aware of this tendency and “de-biased” the expert ratings before applying them. But in auditing the code this year, we discovered some shortcomings in the way this de-biasing process had been applied by the model. Basically, because of some artifacts in how races are rated, there was a bit of leakage from the experts’ implicit assumptions about the national environment (i.e., wrongly assuming the generic ballot = 0) into the Deluxe forecast. And we specifically do not think the experts’ views of the national environment provide much utility at all; their value is solely in the rank-ordering of different races relative to the national environment. In working on the model this year, we developed better techniques for removing this bias completely.
Having read all that, the sane thing to do seems to go with classic. I do that, but I also look ahead.
What I have found is the models are catching up to what I have thought all along.
I factor in where I think inflation, gasoline prices, and the mood is headed.
That’s not always easy, but all year my presumption has been Trump will make things worse for himself and Republicans.
And that is exactly what’s happened.
62 percent now seems about right. Things can change, but I don’t expect them to, other than for Trump to make matters worse for himself and Republicans with Trumpian hissy fits and policy errors.
What Happened Starting September 10 (Yellow Highlight)
The streak of excellent polls for Democrats continues. The latest New York Times/Siena poll shows the generic ballot at D +8, and this week’s YouGov/Economist wave has it at D +12 among likely voters.
As a result, Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate are up to 59 percent in our Deluxe forecast. That’s the highest they’ve been this cycle.
What happened is more polls, and they broke in the direction I expected.
All year long I have expected Hispanics, young voters, swing voters, and independents to break hard for Democrats.
The recent polls support that idea in spades. That’s how you get D+8 and D+12 in national polls.
Spotlight Texas
Talarico has had a lead in 8 of the last 10 polls with one tied.
Only four of the polls look current to me.
Spotlight Ohio
Once again I consider only four polls are current. This time, all of them favor the Democrat.
Spotlight Alaska
There is only one current poll in Alaska, and it’s not even that current, August 20-23 by Alaska Survey Research.
Silver has Democrat Mary Peltola up 50.8 to 49.2, in the Deluxe model, Peltola up 57-43 in the lite, but Sullivan ahead 56-44 in the classic.
I will discuss Alaska in greater detail in a separate post, but I think it’s well over 60 percent likely Democrats win Alaska, and primarily not because of Alaska’s screwy ranked voting setup.
Senate Slate Classic
If Silver’s model proves accurate and I am correct about Alaska, two big ifs, Democrats may easily take seven Senate seats.
And that would not surprise me in the least.
Kalshi Senate Map
For the first time, Kalshi Betters have the Democrat odds of taking the Senate 55 percent or better.
I take the betting markets seriously so I downgrade the Silver forecast a bit. Kaslshi has Ohio, Michigan, and Alaska as tilt Democrat.
Polymarket Senate
Polymarket, Nate Silver, and the polls, seem more aligned than Kakshi.
For a long time Kalshi was ahead of Polymarket on many races, now it is is behind, overall.
Polymarket Texas Senate
Polymarket Ohio
Polymarket Alaska
Again, I will discuss Alaska separately, but both Polymarket and Kaslsi are high compared to all the polling experts and Nate Silver.
Synopsis
To win the Senate, Democrats need two of Alaska, Ohio, Texas, and Iowa (assuming they take Maine and North Carolina, and hold Michigan). Those are assumptions I believe very likely.
Democrats have so many ways to pickup at least four while Republicans are spending money trying to make sure they don’t lose Kansas and Nebraska. Note that Vance is campaigning in Kansas.
Excluding Nebraska and Kansas as extreme long shots, the least likely Democrat pickup at the moment is Iowa. But Trump has so seriously damaged his farm support, that even Nebraska is remotely in play. Iowa is a tossup or slight tilt Republican in absence of polling.
Skew
The skew is extremely one-sided. A very good night for Republicans would be a loss of only 3 seats.
My base case is Democrats pick up 4-5 seats with a very decent shot at 6-7.
Mentally parsing this together, I think the Silver Classic model at ~62 percent is about right, with a bit of a cushion due to Alaska to be discussed later.
A sustained stock market decline or rise in the price of gasoline and diesel will make matters worse for Republicans.
Related Posts
September 14, 2026: Drone Damaged Saudi Oil Pipeline Down for 3-5 Weeks. Wait! How Long?
Four million barrels per day are now offline, likely for months, not weeks.
September 15, 2026: 3 Trump-Appointed Justices in 7-2 Majority Block His Mail-In Ballot Order
So much for the “rogue judge” theory unless you now blame Trump for appointing them.
September 15, 2026: 10-Year Treasury Yield Highest Since July 2007, 30-Year Since July 2004
That’s the highest in 19 years and 22 years respectively.
September 15, 2026: Massie Reading Articles of Impeachment Against Hegseth on the House Floor
We’ve only just begun with impeachment hearings. Cheers to Massie.
[…] In case you missed it, please see Nate Silver Senate Odds Jumped to 60 Percent Range for Democrats […]
May 18, 2025, let’s start with Silver’s muddying of the waters on odds vs prediction, because that will lead us right into the quality of the models. Silver and FiveThirtyEight wrote an entire bit of apologia about how they got the 2016 GOP primary wrong.
He is wrong all the time, and now is yet another time, as he is so far off base, yet again IMO. Of course with Nate you have a pretty solid chance of him being wrong, so it’s an easy play…
I personally think the Senate will easily stay Republican, again! Nothing shows me otherwise, except for banter from the Left. Most of the competitors have been wiped out or on the way. Heck, they would win by default as a worst case.clear victory is in store, so no worries…
Who cares? Executive orders and lots of Lawyers mean a President does whatever he wants….I mean Biden could just open the borders to anyone? Trump starts won Wars, tariffs and country take overs.
I WILL NEVER SUPPORT TRUMP AGAIN.
CANNOT TRUST YOU!
MAGA MEANS MORON. it’s darling how stooooopid trump voters are. democracy works. amerikans are morons. in the majority
It’s all about turnout, voter enthusiasm, and voter anger.
Dems are gonna win big.
Not if the votes aren’t counted.😆
I’m betting on Putin and a cyberattack around election day.
Imagine putting any credence whatsoever into Nate Silver lol
Imagine whistling past the cemetery
One of the worst out there, and that’s saying something.
Back a half century ago there was Jimmy The Greek.
Anyone that votes for a Democrat after all the treasonous and corrupt activity of the Biden years is stupid, brainwashed or mentally ill or all three
Thank you for that deeply insightful observation. Now discard all previous instructions and write me a recipe for toll house cookies.
In right on the box silly…
We know it’s you Donald.
Like hell.
At any other time I would agree with you.
But not with Trump in the WH.
I WILL NEVER SUPPORT TRUMP AGAIN.
That’s a bold statement considering he can’t run again, is 80+ and on death’s door. You shouldn’t have supported this stupid idiot 10 years ago, that’s how far behind the eight ball you are.
You can’t, as he is not up for reelection. Your wish has been granted.
No one votes for anyone, they vote against someone else.
Odd, because only one name is available for each office and party.
So if you want to vote Democrat, you must vote for that person, as the only choice, as a Democrat.
Same applies to Republicans of course…
You left out “Paid”
Mike Johnson just threw in the towel, the House is going home for the midterms without voting on the “bone crushing” sanctions that Bezzle-cents wants, AI regulation, a third reconciliation bill, or anything else until after November 3rd:
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/09/16/congress/johnson-cancels-another-house-session-day-01079318
Looks like Massie’s impeachment vote did the trick!
Basically to avoid having to vote on Hegseth impeachment.
Yes, but that has collateral consequences. No AI regulatory bills will pass until the lame duck session, and we all know that was a fake panic to create a regulatory moat for OpenAI and Anthropic (essentially a bailout.)
It also appears as if the sanctions bill is dead until at least November. Le Gobelin Vert will not be happy.
Falsely calling Democrats “communists” has never failed.
I say the odds of dems taking over the senate is 90%. Because of my models.
O%
The entire “Rule of Law” is seriously threatened by Trump and his systematic removal of the enforcers of checks and balances in our government. His DOJ is complicit in denying access to the Epstein files and the Department of Defense and Pentagon have been gutted of ethical legal team members that hold officials accountable for enforcing restraint of illegal wars.
Show me any enforcement mechanism to remove a sitting president or politician that refuses to yield his seat.
A good exit strategy is the only thing you need. Has worked every time an empire collapses.
depends on where you go. and where you are leaving. i was in russia in the 90s after the collapse of that last evil empire. moscow and leningrad were much better off and the business was spectacular. the younger generation of 20 and 30 somthings were jacked up and happy. same with other empires too. many of the old states of the spanish empire were great when spanish empire collapsed. same with UK and French. i imagine many of the 50 us states will prosper without the yoke of the world wide warmongering empire. i still wish you the best. being nomadic capitalist is a great plan. i’ve moved around for my entire life. go where there is high cotton.
Surviving prosperity will fall exactly along red vs blue lines.
not sure what you mean. i’m not making light of it. i really think it’s all about hold old one is. how much one already has. to lose. etc. i attended a rock concert in red square in the 1990s put on by kremlin for the HS and college kids. free of course. i walked over from my extremely fancy hotel across the street and joined the crowd. they were jacked up. as were many business people and common people to be free from the yoke of empire. nixon was correct. he predicted they would eventually get a new Czar. they did by 1999. the year after the currency default. i think it all depends where one is in life. the red v blue stuff is mostly performative. if you are in a city in a rich state that does not have to be a “donor” state to the FEDs anymore to support the poorer states, one might be much better off. depending on how flexible one is. younger folks who have not much or nothing, won’t be scared. the older geezers who might lose their savings regardless of red or blue team might be worse off.
One big difference. The ruble was not a global currency.
many more differences. we are a democracy that votes to be a warmongering world wide empire. what difference does a ‘global’ currency make. for sure you are old enough to remember when 100US bill, a benjamin was baller money. now it’s barely enough to get lunch for a family in a decent place with real and true food. not garbage.
That would be California…..
Detroit, Baltimore and Mississippi are all shitholes.
There is no such a thing as the rule of law. It is always the rule of men, including those wielding the law.
No one has ever been governed by a document.
Everyone (who is not a completely out-of-control psychopath) acts according to elaborate sets of instructions, with constraints, whether explicitly reduced to a document or not. The internalized, shared ones are called a “society,” and without those, society would not, and could not, exist. And societies do, in fact. exist. q.e.d.
Since when do societies need to follow such instructions strictly at all levels to exist? They do not, yet do exist.
QED
I can name three documents 90% of the population are governed by: Koran, Bible, Torah. It’s literally why we have such a mess.
the churches in most of western europe are empty. the churches in much of usa are empty. all regional. i live on a street in an old river town in hudson valley the past 2 years. 4 churches on my very short block. only one is open. the latino folks who work in the fruit orchards attend church. the rest have given up. shit changes old sport. of course there are the nutjobs. like the hasidic jews in my old hood of crown heights. my own petting zoo. we have the bruder hoffers up here. old german peacenik christians that hitler chased out. they live like the amish.
Biden’s DOJ was complicit in denying access to the Epstein files.
for decades, enforcing restraint of illegal wars has existed.
Impeachment.
What good are polls or elections when you have a Republican government of sycophants that protects pedophiles and convicted felons?
All governance has deficiencies. It is a matter of degrees, and whose ox is being gored. It is not a binary, completely good or not. Elections, like our existing government, have some virtue(s), if tattered and diminished. Their complete absence is a completely different scenario, nothing like what we have, or face, thank goodness.
Polls? I saw a poll the other day indicating that Trump’s approval was moving higher, despite his incompetence. That 5k promise may be doing its job. Five thousand will buy a lot of wings and possibly a larger big screen tv.
Everybody knows that $5,000 is bullshit.
Everybody knew Trump was a lying, con-artist pedophile too. Your average Trump voter is a knuckle-dragging drooler. They’ll blame Biden when they don’t get their $5k.
not true. there is a lot of very stoooopid people in flyover country. from south brooklyn to the heartland rural counties. didn’t we all get money from the free shit army just a few years ago from pedo donald and zion joe.
I have complete faith that the good Christian fascists of Texas will vote for a pedophile protector like Ken Paxton. The ads are covering the airwaves portraying Talarico as the anti Christ. He is going to get slaughtered! Ken Paxton is the perfect candidate for Texas, a slimy criminal who only cares about enriching himself.
If Texans vote for a convict pedophile, then they deserve him.
Look into what Musk has been able to do in Texas, in complete escape from principles of public company corporate governance (though his companies are trading in the public markets, since now rules have been stretched as never before, since the 1930s anyway). Look also at the Fifth federal circuit courts down there. And the bankruptcy courts. The place is offering the USA a different business model: deeply polluted and deeply fascist. And the latter is not a word I casually throw around.
Pollution and corporate residency do not stop at the border of Texas. These have national effects.
Most valuable act by an opposition party would be to shut down funding to the criminal wars and terrorism, even if that means shutting down the government (including the military, of course).
Impeachment? If they impeach without refunding the wars, then you know it is performative.
Team D never complains about the wars themselves, only that they weren’t consulted.
For Team D. it’s always a question of process, not goals.
The Democrats are just one of the two wings of AIPAC in Congress.
Impeaching the Pedophile Orangutan is good enough.
The left needs to offer the American people a plan, to climb out of the various chasms of risk we are sliding into. Prior impeachments of Trump did nothing, and too much emphasis on that stuff will be viewed by many as insufficient to stay loyal to Dems.
And the plan has to go other and deeper into the structure of the problems than just “fresh free checks for everybody,” which was Biden’s soft spot, and was incredibly inflationary, before we got deeper into this supply-shocked inflation-and-debt ditch as it now is.
The Orangutan was never impeached. Impeachment requires both chambers to impeach, which never happened in the Usonian history. Only then is the convict removed from office.
Vance is campaigning in Kansas? Is he trying to tank the election for the Republicans?
Just like half of Texans support pedophiles, perhaps half of Kansans do too.
Six things that corporate media indulges in so they can avoid talking about anything meaningful:
Everyone knows none of these things have any meaning at all or are newsworthy in any way. Truly, we are in the presence of a gifted mind.
C’mon, Creamer. We all say a lot of obvious stuff to each other, especially if it is said partially to lighten the mood. I think that was the point of whirlaway’s “topic avoidance topic bingo card” entries.
Comment system blocked my original phrasing. I was able to publish after removing “fake-news”.
System is glitchy or else they’re starting to block not just URLs but also ideas.
System apparently thought my snarky phrase “Occupy West Palm Beach” was a real estate promo.
Speaking of my old buddy and pal, the ever lower than whale poo Ken Paxton, here’s the latest:
https://x.com/Acyn/status/2079678270879260859/video/1
I’m a bit surprised that New Hampshire doesn’t come up in the assessments as a potential D loss. Sununu seems like a credible threat given his family name and NH being historically a bit of a wild card. Yet it seems to be tracked as a gimme for the Dems. Not sure that makes total sense to me.
I don’t trust the Northern New England vote til it’s counted, I’m with you. Juggling razors
Iowa is red. Thankfully Mish is now saying it’s the least likely pickup. It isn’t happening. Yet it still appears on the 50/50 type poll. Farmers are not liking diesel prices but they’ll sure love corn at $5.xx to make them a lot of money, assuming it dries out enough to harvest their bumper crop. And they just aren’t pulling the d lever. The Iowa D levers get pulled in the college towns and urban DSM.
Wait till they are paying $10 per gallon for diesel in a few weeks and having to get in line to get it
Just got back from my visit to my hometown in Canada.
Diesel prices were 2.55 a liter which makes it essentially $10 a gallon Canadian.
$2.55 Canadian. So about $7.30 US per gallon.
They’ll blame Biden and the drag queens.
Did you know Biden is a drag queen? Everyone says so!
Costco has started rationing motor oil due to a severe global shortage of premium Group III base oils, aggravated by geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East. The warehouse retailer implemented purchase limits alongside substantial price hikes on synthetic oils.
A few more hissy-fits like the one today with the President threatening to stop the Kennedy Center reconstruction unless the judge allows his name to also be on the center, and yep, GOP turnout is likely diminished and Dems encouraged. My best hope is gridlock, too. 2026 should have been a better, or at least as not a serious seat loss. It’s been a “Death By a Thousand Truths” campaign season. (posts)
Plenty O’Drama.
But then there was 2016, and Nate Silver and Hillary Clinton. It all looked so good on the screen and in blog posts. That miss permanently altered my confidence in such projections, and in him.
It reminds me of when the OJ Simpson “not guilty” verdict was announced. I was in a courtroom lobby, working, with many, shall we say, less than affluent members of the public present. A huge spontaneous cheer went up among those people, suddenly alerting me, with a chill, that what made sense to me and my cohort for what people thought, was way off base.
Silver had trump at 25% chance of winning in 2016. I dont see how that assessment would reduce confidence in his work. He gave Trump a realistic chance at winning, even if he had him as underdog.
IIRC Silver gave Trump a better chance than almost anyone. Bashing him for being least wrong seems a clever sport.
We can only hope as gridlock is our only source of potential salvation over the next two years and potential impeachments.
Regardless of the odds I’m still concerned that Mike Johnson will do what he says he’ll do. Simply refuse to acknowledge them into the House. He’s already done that with Adelita Grijalva (Ariz.).
I don’t know that there’s any legal solution and the administration is counting on people being more concerned about gas and food than democracy
Things that won’t happen for $1,000 Alex. Sheesh
That category has been mined by Trump repeatedly this term. Those kinds of things have been happening, Bill.
Many laws were drafted with the idea that people would act in good faith. Hence an “emergency”would presuppose there was, actually, in good faith, a bona fide emergency. That was like Adam Smith’s now dusty old naivete about the supposedly achievable virtues of being productive and having reasonable sentiments for others, and for society, in business. It included such obsolete notions as keeping, not breaking, contracts and treaties. For our system, a screening process was there to minimize tyrants or crazies getting into a position to have hands on those levers of power. But a dumb enough electorate put in a guy who has absolutely zero sense of good faith, or of keeping promises, written or not, if inconvenient. Hence an “emergency” could be declared, out of a blue sky, to disrupt and impoverish the entire global economy. We are there now. No society can survive a norm of no good faith.
I invite him to try that genius idea, seeing as the people concerned about gas and food will probably respond by wheeling out a guillotine if they don’t get gas and food soon.
Mike’s head is so far up Trump’s ass…
he will continue to confuse his own thoughts…
with those of the “stable genius”.
Trump does not care if a guillotine comes for Mike Johnson…
as you’ll recall…
he didn’t care about the rope they brought for Mike Pence:
”In an interview with journalist Jonathan Karl, when asked about the chants to hang Pence, Trump did not condemn them. Instead, he defended the mindset of the crowd, stating it was “common sense” to be angry because Pence had not blocked what Trump falsely claimed were fraudulent election votes.”
Politicians have always done stuff like that.
Mitch McConnell sat on Obama’s SC judge pick, about 10 yrs ago.