For hardcore political junkies, I’ll recommend this fivethirtyeight.com post from Harry Enten taking a look at Senate races, trying to factor in both polling and presidential approval ratings. My main takeaway is that it’s too early to be making predictions! 

Enten focuses on states, such as Arkansas, with a “disparity between what the polls are telling us and the state’s opinion of Democrats.” In addition to Arkansas, the polls are close in Kentucky, Georgia, Alaska, Louisiana and North Carolina, despite all of them voting for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama in 2012. Enten creates a model that seeks to balance the state of the current polling, which he finds is the more historically predictive measure, with the low approval ratings of the sitting president, which he finds is a secondary, but also important, predictive factor. 

Advertisement

Here’s Enten: 

More than six months from the midterm elections, current polling and past precedent are competing for our trust. I analyzed which measure is more indicative come November, and it turns out that polls are a more robust metric even though their numbers are still sparse and there’s still so much time remaining before the election. That’s not to say that a president’s approval rating is useless: It can help refine early polls to make them more accurate. This year, when we factor in both, it doesn’t look promising for Democrats in Alaska, Arkansas, Kentucky or Louisiana.

Basically, Enten’s conclusion is that while Sen. Mark Pryor is polling strong of late, he nevertheless faces an uphill battle because, by Enten’s estimate, Obama’s approval rating in Arkansas is somewhere between 30 percent and 33 percent .

Advertisement

If you just look at the polls, Enten’s model finds that the Pryor-Cotton race is a tossup, but when he used Obama’s approval rating in his model, Pryor’s chances fall to just 31 percent (Nate Silver’s model, which incorporates additional factors, suggested Pryor had a 30 percent chance last month, but that was before the recent spate of good polling for Pryor). 

Invest in the future of great journalism in Arkansas

Join the ranks of the 63,000 Facebook followers, 58,000 Twitter followers, 35,000 Arkansas blog followers, and 70,000 daily email blasts who know that the Arkansas Times is the go-to source for tough, determined, and feisty journalism that holds the powerful accountable. For 50 years, our progressive, alternative newspaper in Little Rock has been on the front lines of the fight for truth, and with your support, we can do even more. By subscribing or donating to the Arkansas Times, you'll not only have access to all of our articles, but you'll also be helping us hire more writers and expand our coverage. Don't miss out on the opportunity to make a difference with your subscription or donation to the Arkansas Times today.

Previous article Diamond watch: Arkansas man finds six-carat diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park Next article Another poll shows Mark Pryor and Tom Cotton neck and neck