Presidential Election 2012: Nate Silver and 538 Blog Have Obama Winning, Dems Maintaining Senate

Impact

Nate Silver is considered to be one of the best polling analysts in the country. His Five Thirty Eight blog over at the New York Times is quite frankly a one-stop shop for insightful analysis of what's going on in the presidential and congressional polls, and has been vetted by many a pundit, academic, and campaign worker.

Having said that, I'm happy to report that as of yesterday, 538 Blog is forecasting a win for President Obama, as well as a continued majority for Democrats in the Senate.

Silver uses a method that simulates election outcomes 100,000 times with data that has been fine-tuned to the point of absurdity.

While he understands that his use of state polls in his latest blog entry in place of national polls could be painting too bright a picture for the president, he counters the argument by stating that historically, state polls have been less biased than their national counterparts — leading to more accurate representations of likely outcomes.

Also interesting are Silver's predictions on key Senate races. He has my home state, Massachusetts, leaning "Safely Democratic" as Elizabeth Warren pulls ahead of Scott Brown by 4.5 points. In other states with key races like Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, 538 Blog predicts "Likely" or "Safe" Democratic wins as well.

Things seem to be shaping up for the Democrats to maintain their control of the executive branch and Senate, while the House will likely remain Republican, which means that America will still be mired in political stalemate as Republicans and Democrats continue to share deeply polarized control of Congress.

However, if the president wins the election as he is predicted to do, Obama 2.0 may be far less willing to deal with Congressional bullshit, and more inclined to issue executive orders whenever our elected officials refuse to play nice together.

While some people may call that undemocratic, I call it being a strong leader and Commander-in-Chief who knows when enough is enough.