NYT's Nate Silver : The risk the Republicans took by voting almost unanimously for Mr. Paul Ryan’s budget, and the killing of Osama bin Laden, both play in favor of President Obama's reelection. - Add Kate Hochul's victory in New York. - Analysis

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Famous Pollster Nate Silver elaborates on Representative Elect Kate Hochul's victory in New York. Nate explains why this Democratic Party Victory can not be blamed on the third candidate Jack Davis. And he draws conclusions for the National Scene and the reelection of President Obama.

The New York Times
Five Thirty Eight
Six Months After Midterm Disaster, Hopeful Signs for Democrats
May 25, 2011


Six Months After Midterm Disaster, Hopeful Signs for Democrats


Some excerpts :

One can also take a more post-modern view toward special elections, like the one advocated by The Washington Post’s Jonathan Bernstein: special elections matter to the extent that people think they matter. We may get a better indication of how much Republicans think this one matters based on the way they vote when Mr. Ryan’s budget comes to a vote in the Senate, possibly later this week.

Republicans could try to toe the party line — there are solid reasons, both from a strategic standpoint, and from a morale standpoint, for them to do so. But that doesn’t necessarily make the problem go away: Democrats are all but certain to make a major issue of Medicare and Mr. Ryan’s budget in every competitive Congressional election next year.

Looking at the bigger picture, my view is that the two biggest wild cards so far this year have both broken in favor of the Democrats: one being the risk the Republicans took by voting almost unanimously for Mr. Ryan’s budget, and the other being the killing of Osama bin Laden. Even in an election that mostly comes down to the economy — President Obama and the Democrats, make no mistake, remain extremely vulnerable there — these could be important factors at the margins. Pick up an extra 1 percent of the vote here, an extra 2 percent of the vote there, and your strategy starts to look a lot more robust: maybe O.K.-but-not-good economic growth is enough to get the Democrats elected, in addition to good-but-not-great growth.

Coupled with what is arguably a troubling start for the Republicans in the presidential campaign — a couple of electable candidates aren’t running, while there are signs now that Sarah Palin may — the past six months have played out in a way that is toward the lower end of what the G.O.P. might reasonably have expected in November 2010.

That doesn’t mean there are any guarantees. Far from it: I don’t know that Mr. Obama is much more likely than a 2-to-1 favorite to retain the White House, nor that Democrats better than even money to take back the House. But both sets of odds have improved, in my view, from where I would have pegged them a few months ago.

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