According to Nate Silver, the Republicans now have a 73% chance of taking over the Senate (that’s a whopping 46 point lead). So Barack Obama will face a hostile Congress, including a Senate that probably won’t confirm any of his nominees.
But in this video, Hillary Clinton (or at least, someone playing her) finds something to sing about, and possibly a silver lining:
[thanks to Ronnie Butler for sending this to me. Ya gotta love a guy who plays the ukulele!]
UPDATE: Republicans now have an insane 51 point advantage — 75.5% to 24.5%.
One Comment
There are two confounding factors that the model doesn’t completely handle. First, run-offs GA and LA. There is a good probability in both cases that today’s results will not decide those elections. In those two states, a candidate must receive 50% of the vote to win. Due to 3rd party candidates, neither the Republican nor the Democrat in both races has been able to pass the mark.
The other factor is independent Greg Orman (http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/upheaval-in-the-kansas-senate-race-is-making-our-chart-kinky/) and how he will vote. The way 538 is counting him is based on his statement that he will caucus with the majority party. So, if the GOP wins 51 seats, he gets counted as a 52nd. But if the Democrats win 50 seats, he gets counted as their 51st. If the GOP wins 50 seats, it’s not clear what he’ll do. So this ends up skewing the distribution just slightly. In the end, even if Orman does end up caucusing as a Republican, based on his record, he will clearly be less than a RINO and will frequently thwart the party line.