fivethirthyeight--2020-11-07--Biden Won — But The Deep Partisan Divide In America Remains

Joe Biden is the apparent winner of Pennsylvania .
On Saturday morning , the major networks declared that he had won there , giving him enough electoral votes to become the president-elect .
But let ’ s go back to late Tuesday night for a moment … Once it was fairly clear that Biden would likely win the presidential election but in more of a drawn-out nail-biter than many polls had suggested , and that Democrats would keep their majority in the U.S. House but lose seats and perhaps not win control of the U.S. Senate , people in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 2020 race .
Many of these arguments focused on flaws or shortcomings in the Democratic approach to 2020 — even though they had just pulled off the somewhat rare feat of unseating an incumbent president .
Some analysts argued that Democrats are too liberal , particularly on racial issues ; others argued that Democrats are insufficiently liberal , particularly on economic issues .
There is renewed criticism that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are bad at crafting a narrative for the party and recruiting candidates for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the party is not doing enough to appeal to Hispanic voters .
There are also questions about why polls appeared to understate the depth of Trump ’ s support ( again ) .
And , finally , there are questions once again about whether the broader political media is missing something in telling the story of American politics .
After all , the media has often cast Trump as an ineffective president , particularly in dealing with the outbreak of the novel coronavirus , and yet nearly half of the country ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of these arguments could be true .
All of them could be true ( except the mutually exclusive ones ) .
But here ’ s another take , or perhaps an anti-take : At the least , the unique nature of the vote in 2020 — in particular , that the counting is taking and will take longer than usual — means we won ’ t know many of these answers for some time .
And , moreover , Tuesday wasn ’ t particularly unusual , at least in the context of modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans , including the vast majority of Asian , Black and Hispanic voters , backed the Democratic Party ’ s presidential candidate .
A slightly smaller bloc , including the majority of white Americans and the overwhelming majority of white evangelical Protestants , backed the Republican Party ’ s candidate .
Democrats carried states on the West Coast and in the Northeast , the GOP was dominant in the South and the Great Plains .
Democrats were very strong in cities , the GOP in rural areas ; the suburbs were somewhat more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it appears that a majority of voters in only one state chose a senator from a different party than in the presidential race ( Republican Sen. Susan Collins won in Maine , which Biden carried easily . )
In short , what made Tuesday surprising to observers was that the pre-election polls may have understated the size of Red America by a few percentage points nationally and overstated Biden ’ s standing in some swing states .
But an election where Democrats won the popular vote by several million votes but fairly narrowly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 .
The list of states that Biden won but Barack Obama lost in 2012 ( maybe Arizona and maybe Georgia ) is short , as is the list of states that Obama won in 2012 but Biden lost ( Florida , Iowa , Ohio ) .
The election being decided by Pennsylvania , Michigan and Wisconsin was probably what we expected in January 2020 , even though it looked as though Biden might expand the map far beyond that in November 2020 .
Obviously , there were some big shifts in 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lost Georgia by 8 percentage points in 2012 ; Biden is slightly ahead there .
Four years ago , Trump won about 34 percent of the vote in Miami-Dade County , but around 46 percent this year , a huge increase .
Most importantly , it is very notable , if not surprising , that Trump managed to get nearly universal support from Republican voters and win over nearly half of the total electorate despite his history of breaking with democratic values and his being in charge of the U.S. government while more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , I ’ m not arguing that people should have expected what happened on Tuesday .
I did not .
I expected it to be somewhat clear by 11 p.m. on election night that Biden had won .
I expected Democrats would gain control of the Senate and win House seats .
None of that happened .
I want to know more about what polls may have gotten wrong ( though we ’ ll have to wait for all the votes to be counted before really diving into that ) .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ each party may have affected the results and other factors that may have shaped the election .
Some of the initial post-election criticisms of Democrats and the political media may be right .
But the most obvious conclusion from the 2020 elections is that we are still divided between two entrenched political coalitions in America .
This has basically been true since at least the 2000 elections .
Those two coalitions show up in polling on a ton of issues .
I am not suggesting that these coalitions are of exactly equal size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in seven of the last eight presidential elections ) .
Nor am I suggesting that these coalitions are permanent and unchanging , or that the parties and candidates can ’ t do things to shift these dynamics .
Maybe Democrats would have done better at the congressional level with different candidates or a different message .
Perhaps Republicans will dominate elections in the future without the unpopular Trump weighing down the party .
Alternatively , perhaps Trump is a uniquely talented politician and Democrats will be able to win more elections if he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But I do know that at least 42 states and the clear majority of Americans voted for the same party at the presidential level in 2020 as they did in 2016 .
The most important story may be not what changed electorally in 2020 , but how and why so much did not change .


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-07--Biden Won — Pretty Convincingly In The End

Even if you knew in advance about the “ blue shift ” that would occur in states like Pennsylvania — and we did know in advance about it !
— it ’ s been hard to make enough of a mental adjustment for it this week .
Numbers flashing across a TV ticker have a certain magnetic power and certitude to them .
It was easy to forget that Joe Biden would gain ground once mail votes were added to the tallies because such votes were overwhelmingly Democratic this year in Pennsylvania and most other states .
But just because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ red shift that occurred in states where mail votes were counted first — that doesn ’ t mean the presidential race was all that close in the end .
Joe Biden ’ s win was on the tighter side of the likely range of outcomes suggested by polls , but it was a thoroughly convincing one judged on its own merits .
So put aside your anxieties of the past few days and the premature media narratives that have been circulating since Tuesday night .
Suppose , instead , that you ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trips in the Grand Canyon ( sounds pleasant , doesn ’ t it ? )
and woke up to this map : It ’ s not a landslide , by any means , but this is a map that almost any Democrat would have been thrilled about if you ’ d shown it to them a year ago .
Biden looks to have reclaimed the three “ blue wall ” states — Pennsylvania , Michigan and Wisconsin ( ABC News has announced that Biden is the “ apparent winner ” in Pennsylvania and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hillary Clinton ’ s loss .
He may also win Arizona ( he would become the first Democrat to do so since 1996 ) and , in the opposite corner of the country , Georgia ( the first Democratic winner there since 1992 ) .
Additionally , Biden easily won Nebraska ’ s 2nd Congressional District , which could be a thorn in the side of Republicans going forward .
He also ran far ahead of Clinton in rural northern states such as Maine , Minnesota and New Hampshire .
Extrapolating out from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ winning the popular vote by 4.3 percentage points and getting 81.8 million votes to President Trump ’ s 74.9 million , with a turnout of around 160 million .
This is significant because no candidate has ever received 70 million votes in an election — former President Barack Obama came the closest in 2008 , with 69.5 million votes — let alone 80 million .
That may also be a slightly conservative projection , given the blue shift we ’ ve seen so far and the fact that late-counted votes such as provisional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d probably bet on Biden ’ s popular vote margin winding up at closer to 5 points than to 4 , and 6 points isn ’ t entirely out of the question either .
The margin is also a bit more impressive in the context of our highly polarized political era , which has tended to produce close elections .
If I ’ m right about the popular vote margin , Biden ’ s win would come via the second-largest popular vote margin since 2000 , exceeding Obama ’ s 3.9-point margin against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Obama ’ s 7.3-point win over John McCain in 2008 .
Biden also defeated an elected incumbent , which is relatively rare .
Since World War II , five elected incumbents who sought reelection have won it — Dwight Eisenhower , Richard Nixon , George W. Bush , Bill Clinton and Obama .
Trump is now the third sitting president to lose his reelection bid in that time , along with Jimmy Carter and George H.W .
Bush .
What about the polls ?
Didn ’ t they show a wider margin for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden led in the final national polls by around 8 points .
So we ’ re probably going to wind up with a polling error of around 3 to 4 points , both nationally and at the state level .
( Although that will reflect a combination of states like Georgia , where the polls were spot-on , and others like Wisconsin , where there were big misses . )
This is , of course , a subject on which we ’ ll have more to say in the coming days .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say that pollsters will have some questions to answer , especially about how they missed in the same direction ( underestimating Trump ) in some of the same states two elections in a row .
At the same time , this election ’ s polling error may wind up being fairly normal by historical standards .
Indeed , the final polls miss by around 3 points , on average , in presidential elections .
The error this year may be somewhat wider than that , but we should wait for all the votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substantially in some states before results are certified .
In any case , Biden ’ s ability to survive a polling error of the size that sank Clinton was precisely the reason he was a fairly heavy favorite in our forecast .
Biden won ( or is likely to win ) several states — Georgia , Wisconsin , Pennsylvania , Arizona — by margins that will probably be between 0 and 2 percentage points , in contrast to Clinton , who lost Wisconsin , Michigan , Pennsylvania and Florida by margins of 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s 89 percent chance of winning the Electoral College included the possibility of nail-biter wins in critical states — although , again , it ’ s hard to know if this race would be regarded as that much of a nail-biter if not for the timing of ballot counting and the blue shift .
The bigger problems — both for Democrats and for the polls — were in races for Congress .
There weren ’ t necessarily any huge upsets in the Senate ; it ’ s just that Democrats lost most of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ winners have been projected so far , Democrat Sara Gideon is the only Senate candidate favored in our forecast to have lost , and she had only a 59 percent chance of beating Sen. Susan Collins , according to our final forecast .
Gideon , however , is likely to eventually be joined by Cal Cunningham in North Carolina , who had a 68 percent chance , although the polling in that Senate race had tightened in the closing days of the campaign following a Cunningham sexting scandal .
Republican Joni Ernst held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ although Ernst was a narrow favorite in our forecast .
Democrats do retain a chance at a Senate majority , or more likely a 50-50 split in which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the deciding vote .
Democrats currently hold 48 seats , but there are two runoffs in Georgia on Jan. 5 that are sure to attract hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertising .
I ’ m a little too exhausted to prognosticate about the Georgia runoffs all that much , but Democrats are at least mathematically alive here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to win .
They also retain some outside chances at winning a Senate seat in Alaska , where mail votes have not yet been counted .
But Democrats underperformed in the U.S. House , where they ’ ve lost almost every toss-up race that has been projected so far and Republicans have made a net gain of five seats and counting .
It also appears as though Democrats will underperform in the House popular vote relative to the presidential vote and the generic ballot , where Democrats led by about 7 percentage points @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miss ( although the House popular vote can take a long time to finalize ) .
In that sense , the election could be described as more of a repudiation of Trump specifically than of Republicans writ large .
Biden did have some shortcomings , however .
One major one was his apparent underperformance among key groups of Hispanic voters , especially Cuban Americans in South Florida and Mexican Americans in South Texas .
As you can see in this chart from The New York Times , there were huge shifts toward Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the addition of Georgia and Arizona in their column , Democrats ’ Electoral College coalition is somewhat fragile if it doesn ’ t contain Florida or Texas .
It ’ s not clear yet what the tipping-point state will be in this election — but mostly likely it will be Arizona or Wisconsin , where it appears as though Biden will win by around 1 percentage point .
That could mean there ’ s around a 4-point gap between the roughly 5-point popular vote victory that we eventually expect from Biden and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a bigger Electoral College disadvantage than Clinton had in 2016 ( 3 points ) .
Still , this brings up one last point : This is the seventh election out of the past eight in which Democrats have won the popular vote for president .
If American elections were contested on the basis of the popular vote , this race could probably have been called fairly early on Tuesday night , and we could all have gotten a lot more sleep the past few days .
But don ’ t let bleary eyes @ @ @ @ @ @

Even if you knew in advance about the “blue shift” that would occur in states like Pennsylvania — and we did know in advance about it! — it’s been hard to make enough of a mental adjustment for it this week. Numbers flashing across a TV ticker have a certain magnetic power and certitude to them. It was easy to forget that Joe Biden would gain ground once mail votes were added to the tallies because such votes were overwhelmingly Democratic this year in Pennsylvania and most other states.
How Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won a historic election | FiveThirtyEight
But just because of that blue shift — and the red shift that occurred in states where mail votes were counted first — that doesn’t mean the presidential race was all that close in the end. Joe Biden’s win was on the tighter side of the likely range of outcomes suggested by polls, but it was a thoroughly convincing one judged on its own merits.
So put aside your anxieties of the past few days and the premature media narratives that have been circulating since Tuesday night. Suppose, instead, that you’d been on one of those weekslong rafting trips in the Grand Canyon (sounds pleasant, doesn’t it?) and woke up to this map:
It’s not a landslide, by any means, but this is a map that almost any Democrat would have been thrilled about if you’d shown it to them a year ago. Biden looks to have reclaimed the three “blue wall” states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin (ABC News has announced that Biden is the “apparent winner” in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin ) — that were central to Hillary Clinton’s loss. He may also win Arizona (he would become the first Democrat to do so since 1996) and, in the opposite corner of the country, Georgia (the first Democratic winner there since 1992). Additionally, Biden easily won Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which could be a thorn in the side of Republicans going forward. He also ran far ahead of Clinton in rural northern states such as Maine, Minnesota and New Hampshire.
Extrapolating out from current vote totals, I project Biden winning the popular vote by 4.3 percentage points and getting 81.8 million votes to President Trump’s 74.9 million, with a turnout of around 160 million. This is significant because no candidate has ever received 70 million votes in an election — former President Barack Obama came the closest in 2008, with 69.5 million votes — let alone 80 million. That may also be a slightly conservative projection, given the blue shift we’ve seen so far and the fact that late-counted votes such as provisional ballots often lean Democratic. I’d probably bet on Biden’s popular vote margin winding up at closer to 5 points than to 4, and 6 points isn’t entirely out of the question either.
The margin is also a bit more impressive in the context of our highly polarized political era, which has tended to produce close elections. If I’m right about the popular vote margin, Biden’s win would come via the second-largest popular vote margin since 2000, exceeding Obama’s 3.9-point margin against Mitt Romney in 2012 but lagging behind Obama’s 7.3-point win over John McCain in 2008.
Biden also defeated an elected incumbent, which is relatively rare. Since World War II, five elected incumbents who sought reelection have won it — Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Obama. Trump is now the third sitting president to lose his reelection bid in that time, along with Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.
What about the polls? Didn’t they show a wider margin for Biden? Yes, they did — Biden led in the final national polls by around 8 points. So we’re probably going to wind up with a polling error of around 3 to 4 points, both nationally and at the state level. (Although that will reflect a combination of states like Georgia, where the polls were spot-on, and others like Wisconsin, where there were big misses.) This is, of course, a subject on which we’ll have more to say in the coming days. For now, it’s safe to say that pollsters will have some questions to answer, especially about how they missed in the same direction (underestimating Trump) in some of the same states two elections in a row.
At the same time, this election’s polling error may wind up being fairly normal by historical standards. Indeed, the final polls miss by around 3 points, on average, in presidential elections. The error this year may be somewhat wider than that, but we should wait for all the votes to be counted because margins may shift substantially in some states before results are certified.
In any case, Biden’s ability to survive a polling error of the size that sank Clinton was precisely the reason he was a fairly heavy favorite in our forecast. Biden won (or is likely to win) several states — Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona — by margins that will probably be between 0 and 2 percentage points, in contrast to Clinton, who lost Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida by margins of 1 percentage point or less. Biden’s 89 percent chance of winning the Electoral College included the possibility of nail-biter wins in critical states — although, again, it’s hard to know if this race would be regarded as that much of a nail-biter if not for the timing of ballot counting and the blue shift.
The bigger problems — both for Democrats and for the polls — were in races for Congress.
What Trump revealed about America | FiveThirtyEight
There weren’t necessarily any huge upsets in the Senate; it’s just that Democrats lost most of the toss-up races. Among races where winners have been projected so far, Democrat Sara Gideon is the only Senate candidate favored in our forecast to have lost, and she had only a 59 percent chance of beating Sen. Susan Collins, according to our final forecast. Gideon, however, is likely to eventually be joined by Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, who had a 68 percent chance, although the polling in that Senate race had tightened in the closing days of the campaign following a Cunningham sexting scandal. Republican Joni Ernst held off challenger Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, although Ernst was a narrow favorite in our forecast.
Democrats do retain a chance at a Senate majority, or more likely a 50-50 split in which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the deciding vote. Democrats currently hold 48 seats, but there are two runoffs in Georgia on Jan. 5 that are sure to attract hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertising. I’m a little too exhausted to prognosticate about the Georgia runoffs all that much, but Democrats are at least mathematically alive here in a state that Biden appears likely to win. They also retain some outside chances at winning a Senate seat in Alaska, where mail votes have not yet been counted.
But Democrats underperformed in the U.S. House, where they’ve lost almost every toss-up race that has been projected so far and Republicans have made a net gain of five seats and counting. It also appears as though Democrats will underperform in the House popular vote relative to the presidential vote and the generic ballot, where Democrats led by about 7 percentage points. That looks like a significant polling miss (although the House popular vote can take a long time to finalize). In that sense, the election could be described as more of a repudiation of Trump specifically than of Republicans writ large.
Biden did have some shortcomings, however. One major one was his apparent underperformance among key groups of Hispanic voters, especially Cuban Americans in South Florida and Mexican Americans in South Texas. As you can see in this chart from The New York Times, there were huge shifts toward Trump in these areas:
Indeed, even with the addition of Georgia and Arizona in their column, Democrats’ Electoral College coalition is somewhat fragile if it doesn’t contain Florida or Texas. It’s not clear yet what the tipping-point state will be in this election — but mostly likely it will be Arizona or Wisconsin, where it appears as though Biden will win by around 1 percentage point. That could mean there’s around a 4-point gap between the roughly 5-point popular vote victory that we eventually expect from Biden and his margin in the tipping-point state, a bigger Electoral College disadvantage than Clinton had in 2016 (3 points).
Still, this brings up one last point: This is the seventh election out of the past eight in which Democrats have won the popular vote for president. If American elections were contested on the basis of the popular vote, this race could probably have been called fairly early on Tuesday night, and we could all have gotten a lot more sleep the past few days. But don’t let bleary eyes obscure Biden’s accomplishment.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Is College Football Abandoning The Punt Return?

The first few games of this college football season saw a return to chaos for one specific play : the punt return .
Louisiana used a punt-return touchdown ( after an earlier touchdown on a kickoff return ) to fuel one of the biggest wins in Cajun program history and the season ’ s first upset of a ranked opponent .
Texas State returned a punt 91 yards for a touchdown that forced overtime against UTSA .
South Florida earned the distinction of shortest punt return for a touchdown ever when the Bulls fielded the ball in the end zone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was just Sept. 12 .
But since its exciting start to the season , the punt return has cooled to something resembling normalcy .
And by normalcy , we mean boredom .
There was a time when a return felt like the most breathtaking play in football .
Now it feels like a palate cleanser .
Offense continues to govern the sport , with this season projected to set an all-time single-season high in expected points added per play ( 0.07 ) , according to ESPN Stats & Information Group , and an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent ) .
The latter is instructive : As drives are extended , punt opportunities have dried up .
Just 35.8 percent of drives through Week 9 of this season had involved a punt , a rate that if maintained would represent the lowest mark of any season since at least 2004 by more than 2 percentage points .
But even the appearance of a punter and a return man hardly induces anything but a yawn .
Just 27.5 percent of punts through Week 9 had been returned , an all-time low .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of factors — rugby-style kicking , improved hang time and directional punting , among them — and a rise in skill and strategy may have led to returners either not having the opportunity or ceding it .
For fans of players waving their hands in the air , the 2020 season has been historic .
More than one-third of punts have been fair-caught , an all-time high and a spike of more than 20 percentage points since 2004 .
Punting is now often employed to pin opponents deep in their own territory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s working .
The top two seasons since 2004 in share of punts downed inside the 10-yard line were produced in the past three seasons .
That accuracy has come at the expense of touchdowns .
There were 8,515 punts last season , and just 50 ( 0.59 percent ) were returned for touchdowns , the lowest total and rate on record .
Compared to 2004 , last season represented a 57 percent decrease in total punts taken to the house .
This season has included a modest bump ( 0.83 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it ’ s well below the 1.52 percent touchdown rate of 2004 .
College football hardly resembles what it was back when a four-sport star named Jackie Robinson was setting the national standard in the return game .
When Robinson led the nation in punt-return average in 1939 , the average team fielded 4.42 punts per contest and accumulated 41.6 punt-return yards per game .
And even in 1978 , when major football programs were separated into Division I-A and I-AA , the top tier of teams averaged 2.51 returns per game @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last season fielded 1.4 punts per game and accumulated 11.8 punt-return yards , both all-time lows , even though yards per return have stayed fairly steady since 1978 .
It ’ s hard to believe there was ever a time when a player once returned 20 punts in a single game and that ’ s likely because the single-season record for fewest punt returns per game is shared by three teams , all of which produced the mark — just 0.25 returns per game — in the past five seasons .
Returning punts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ creativity — including faking a fair catch and even faking your own death .
In a sport in which everything from the play calls to the uniforms feels aggressively scripted , the punt return felt organic , a grab-bag of split-second decision-making and open-field spontaneity and acceleration .
But in recent years , the transitional play has evolved into a formality .
And even though the first few weeks of the 2020 season reinjected excitement into a dormant fossil , it ultimately fell back to Earth , with returners waving it away below @

The first few games of this college football season saw a return to chaos for one specific play: the punt return. Louisiana used a punt-return touchdown (after an earlier touchdown on a kickoff return) to fuel one of the biggest wins in Cajun program history and the season’s first upset of a ranked opponent. Texas State returned a punt 91 yards for a touchdown that forced overtime against UTSA. South Florida earned the distinction of shortest punt return for a touchdown ever when the Bulls fielded the ball in the end zone itself against The Citadel.
And that was just Sept. 12.
But since its exciting start to the season, the punt return has cooled to something resembling normalcy. And by normalcy, we mean boredom.
There was a time when a return felt like the most breathtaking play in football. Now it feels like a palate cleanser. Offense continues to govern the sport, with this season projected to set an all-time single-season high in expected points added per play (0.07), according to ESPN Stats & Information Group, and an all-time low in three-and-out percentage (28.8 percent). The latter is instructive: As drives are extended, punt opportunities have dried up. Just 35.8 percent of drives through Week 9 of this season had involved a punt, a rate that if maintained would represent the lowest mark of any season since at least 2004 by more than 2 percentage points.
But even the appearance of a punter and a return man hardly induces anything but a yawn. Just 27.5 percent of punts through Week 9 had been returned, an all-time low. This could be the byproduct of a number of factors — rugby-style kicking, improved hang time and directional punting, among them — and a rise in skill and strategy may have led to returners either not having the opportunity or ceding it.
For fans of players waving their hands in the air, the 2020 season has been historic. More than one-third of punts have been fair-caught, an all-time high and a spike of more than 20 percentage points since 2004.
Punting is now often employed to pin opponents deep in their own territory and flip the field. And it’s working. The top two seasons since 2004 in share of punts downed inside the 10-yard line were produced in the past three seasons.
That accuracy has come at the expense of touchdowns. There were 8,515 punts last season, and just 50 (0.59 percent) were returned for touchdowns, the lowest total and rate on record. Compared to 2004, last season represented a 57 percent decrease in total punts taken to the house. This season has included a modest bump (0.83 percent touchdown rate through Week 9), but it’s well below the 1.52 percent touchdown rate of 2004.
College football hardly resembles what it was back when a four-sport star named Jackie Robinson was setting the national standard in the return game. When Robinson led the nation in punt-return average in 1939, the average team fielded 4.42 punts per contest and accumulated 41.6 punt-return yards per game. And even in 1978, when major football programs were separated into Division I-A and I-AA, the top tier of teams averaged 2.51 returns per game and 18.6 total punt-return yards. Teams last season fielded 1.4 punts per game and accumulated 11.8 punt-return yards, both all-time lows, even though yards per return have stayed fairly steady since 1978.
It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when a player once returned 20 punts in a single game and that’s likely because the single-season record for fewest punt returns per game is shared by three teams, all of which produced the mark — just 0.25 returns per game — in the past five seasons.
Returning punts has long been an opportunity to showcase creativity — including faking a fair catch and even faking your own death. In a sport in which everything from the play calls to the uniforms feels aggressively scripted, the punt return felt organic, a grab-bag of split-second decision-making and open-field spontaneity and acceleration. But in recent years, the transitional play has evolved into a formality. And even though the first few weeks of the 2020 season reinjected excitement into a dormant fossil, it ultimately fell back to Earth, with returners waving it away below.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Democrats Aren’t Sure Why They Didn’t Do Better In The House And Senate. It Might Not Be Clear For W

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew reviews the unresolved races in the 2020 election and @ @ @ @ @ are reacting to the results .

Democrats Aren’t Sure Why They Didn’t Do Better In The House And Senate. It Might Not Be Clear For Weeks.
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew reviews the unresolved races in the 2020 election and discusses how the two parties are reacting to the results.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Politics Podcast: Where The Rest Of The 2020 Races Stand

Joe Biden is the president-elect , but our colleagues at ABC News have yet to project four states in the @ @ @ @ @ mention outstanding races in the House and Senate .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight @ @ @ @ @ reviews who is leading in the outstanding races and how the two parties are reacting @ @ @ @ @ also discuss what positive vaccine news could mean for Biden ’ s first term .
@ @ @ @ @ episode by clicking the “ play ” button in the audio player above or by @ @ @ @ @ the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts @ @ @ @ @ .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover @ @ @ @ @ a rating and review on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for @ @ @ @ @ polling ” ?
Get in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments @

Joe Biden is the president-elect, but our colleagues at ABC News have yet to project four states in the presidential contest, not to mention a number of races in the House and Senate. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew reviews who is leading in the outstanding races and how the two parties are reacting to the results. They also discuss what positive vaccine news could mean for Biden’s first term.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Remembering Alex Trebek, The Man With All The Answers

For decades , I ’ ve tuned into the trivia game show “ Jeopardy !
” for the facts .
On Sunday , the show lost its judicious leader , Alex Trebek , who died at age 80 after a battle with cancer .
Trebek had hosted “ Jeopardy !
” for my entire life .
He began in 1984 and hosted every episode since — save for April Fool ’ s Day in 1997 when he and Pat Sajak of “ Wheel of Fortune ” swapped places — more than 8,000 half-hour shows in all .
For many , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a day ends and a night begins .
It was also a way to get real facts , a brief respite from the “ alternative facts ” so prevalent over the past few years .
Trebek and the show — the two difficult now to divorce — were a beacon of democratic ideals , flattening the world for all to consume .
High and low , popular and obscure , new and old , holy and profane , Trebek put all of them on equal terms .
Look no further than the episode @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this past Friday , for example .
It featured clues about Rihanna , Madonna and Katy Perry , and clues about the city of Vaduz , the Russian navy and the German chancellor .
All were on the same game board — though Gene Wilder and the Cook Strait were worth more money than any of them .
“ Jeopardy !
” and Trebek have been a haven for facts as monuments of truth have crumbled in the public sphere .
The holder of the country ’ s highest office now baselessly disputes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and dangerous conspiracy theories are elected to Congress , and fact-checking is a booming industry .
Trebek ’ s performance hasn ’ t changed to combat the untruths of the last few years , in part because it already was a kind of totem to the value of fact .
Since 1984 , he has stood each weekday in a suit behind a podium with a sheet of notes and delivered more than 400,000 clues , each a minor daily inoculation against the creep of lies — or whatever you want to call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than a host , ” tweeted James Holzhauer , who set a series of unreal records on “ Jeopardy !
” last spring .
“ He was an impartial arbiter of truth and facts in a world that needs exactly that.
” The show ’ s eclectic and unpredictable subject matter is the result of an unassuming , wide-angle lens cast upon a large and complicated world .
We call the material Trebek delivered “ trivia , ” but few things are less trivial than turning a generous eye toward the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ splendor — and calling things by their right name .
The headline on a great 2014 profile of Trebek in the New Republic declared him the “ Last King of the American Middlebrow.
” This is true not in a pejorative sense but in a statistical one , as in the average between high and low .
Trebek ’ s essential demeanor — and therefore “ Jeopardy !
” itself — is stripped of pretension and pretext .
The show ’ s archive showcases its diverse interests , each of which was presented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simply and equally in the iconic all-caps white text on a blue square .
Knowledge of the former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is worth the same as that of “ The Office ” actor Steve Carrell , as that of the toy Mr .
Potato Head .
The playwright Shakespeare is equal to the running back Walter Payton .
The element helium is as valuable as the airport Heathrow .
Trebek ’ s performance as host emphasized this egalitarianism .
His affect was steady and his pronunciation — of French , most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took pre-show notes with diacritical marks to ensure that he ’ d get it right .
And at the same time he was , among other things , an underrated rapper , as Holzhauer joked , enthusiastically engaging with the repertoires of Lil Wayne , Drake and Kendrick Lamar .
“ I ’ m not too good at it , but I was getting into it , ” Trebek said after delivering the verses , and I believed him .
Moreover , Trebek ’ s performance didn ’ t just lack pretension , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lightly chastised three contestants , who had correctly answered clues about Molière and Thor Heyerdahl , for not knowing enough about football .
“ I have to talk to them , ” Trebek said disapprovingly before going to commercial .
The democratic nature of trivia had been thrown off-kilter , and Trebek had to correct it .
By all accounts , Trebek embodied these trivia ideals while also being a genuine and gracious human .
“ Alex wasn ’ t just the best ever at what he did , ” tweeted Ken Jennings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contestant , who won a record 74 consecutive times .
“ He was also a lovely and deeply decent man , and I ’ m grateful for every minute I got to spend with him.
” It was with this same ethos of decency and calm that Trebek announced , in March 2019 , that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer .
He said he “ wanted to prevent you from reading or hearing some overblown or inaccurate reports regarding my health.
” The rest of the short statement was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fight the cancer and continue working .
“ Truth told , I have to , ” he said , with a characteristic pinch of humor .
“ Because under the terms of my contract , I have to host ‘ Jeopardy !
’ for three more years.
” I wish he were able to do so .
The show may go on , but it ’ s hard to imagine anyone personifying its ideals as well as Alex Trebek did .
Of course , the contestants on “ Jeopardy !
” just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who had all the answers .

For decades, I’ve tuned into the trivia game show “Jeopardy!” for the facts. On Sunday, the show lost its judicious leader, Alex Trebek, who died at age 80 after a battle with cancer.
Trebek had hosted “Jeopardy!” for my entire life. He began in 1984 and hosted every episode since — save for April Fool’s Day in 1997 when he and Pat Sajak of “Wheel of Fortune” swapped places — more than 8,000 half-hour shows in all. For many, watching Trebek was ritualistic — the way a day ends and a night begins. It was also a way to get real facts, a brief respite from the “alternative facts” so prevalent over the past few years.
Trebek and the show — the two difficult now to divorce — were a beacon of democratic ideals, flattening the world for all to consume. High and low, popular and obscure, new and old, holy and profane, Trebek put all of them on equal terms. Look no further than the episode of “Jeopardy!” that aired this past Friday, for example. It featured clues about Rihanna, Madonna and Katy Perry, and clues about the city of Vaduz, the Russian navy and the German chancellor. All were on the same game board — though Gene Wilder and the Cook Strait were worth more money than any of them.
“Jeopardy!” and Trebek have been a haven for facts as monuments of truth have crumbled in the public sphere. The holder of the country’s highest office now baselessly disputes legitimate election results, espousers of baseless and dangerous conspiracy theories are elected to Congress, and fact-checking is a booming industry.
Trebek’s performance hasn’t changed to combat the untruths of the last few years, in part because it already was a kind of totem to the value of fact. Since 1984, he has stood each weekday in a suit behind a podium with a sheet of notes and delivered more than 400,000 clues, each a minor daily inoculation against the creep of lies — or whatever you want to call them.
“Alex was so much more than a host,” tweeted James Holzhauer, who set a series of unreal records on “Jeopardy!” last spring. “He was an impartial arbiter of truth and facts in a world that needs exactly that.”
The show’s eclectic and unpredictable subject matter is the result of an unassuming, wide-angle lens cast upon a large and complicated world. We call the material Trebek delivered “trivia,” but few things are less trivial than turning a generous eye toward the world — in all its strange and diverse splendor — and calling things by their right name.
The headline on a great 2014 profile of Trebek in the New Republic declared him the “Last King of the American Middlebrow.” This is true not in a pejorative sense but in a statistical one, as in the average between high and low. Trebek’s essential demeanor — and therefore “Jeopardy!” itself — is stripped of pretension and pretext.
The show’s archive showcases its diverse interests, each of which was presented on the show’s giant board simply and equally in the iconic all-caps white text on a blue square. Knowledge of the former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli is worth the same as that of “The Office” actor Steve Carrell, as that of the toy Mr. Potato Head. The playwright Shakespeare is equal to the running back Walter Payton. The element helium is as valuable as the airport Heathrow.
Trebek’s performance as host emphasized this egalitarianism. His affect was steady and his pronunciation — of French, most famously — was impeccable, and he took pre-show notes with diacritical marks to ensure that he’d get it right. And at the same time he was, among other things, an underrated rapper, as Holzhauer joked, enthusiastically engaging with the repertoires of Lil Wayne, Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
“I’m not too good at it, but I was getting into it,” Trebek said after delivering the verses, and I believed him.
Moreover, Trebek’s performance didn’t just lack pretension, it was anti-pretentious. He once famously lightly chastised three contestants, who had correctly answered clues about Molière and Thor Heyerdahl, for not knowing enough about football. “I have to talk to them,” Trebek said disapprovingly before going to commercial. The democratic nature of trivia had been thrown off-kilter, and Trebek had to correct it.
By all accounts, Trebek embodied these trivia ideals while also being a genuine and gracious human.
“Alex wasn’t just the best ever at what he did,” tweeted Ken Jennings, the show’s most famous contestant, who won a record 74 consecutive times. “He was also a lovely and deeply decent man, and I’m grateful for every minute I got to spend with him.”
It was with this same ethos of decency and calm that Trebek announced, in March 2019, that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He said he “wanted to prevent you from reading or hearing some overblown or inaccurate reports regarding my health.” The rest of the short statement was filled with facts, and he vowed to fight the cancer and continue working. “Truth told, I have to,” he said, with a characteristic pinch of humor. “Because under the terms of my contract, I have to host ‘Jeopardy!’ for three more years.”
I wish he were able to do so. The show may go on, but it’s hard to imagine anyone personifying its ideals as well as Alex Trebek did. Of course, the contestants on “Jeopardy!” just ask the questions. It was Trebek who had all the answers.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Did The Saints And Bills Show The Bucs And Seahawks Who The Real Contenders Are?

sara.ziegler ( Sara Ziegler , sports editor ) : After tonight ’ s scintillating Jets-Patriots matchup , we will officially be halfway through the season , with every team having played at least eight games .
And boy , did a few of those Week 9 games deliver some interesting twists to the season .
In last week ’ s chat , we talked about the four teams leading our model , noting “ the weakness of that group.
” That weakness was exposed this week , as Tampa Bay and Seattle lost big while Pittsburgh and Kansas City needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s start with the most lopsided loss : Tampa Bay ’ s 38-3 dismantling at the hands of New Orleans .
The Saints swept the season series ; do they just have the Bucs ’ number ?
joshua.hermsmeyer ( Josh Hermsmeyer , NFL analyst ) : I can imagine a world where Sean Payton and Bill Belichick get together and chat casually .
Perhaps those talks occurred right before games against Tampa Bay this year — who can really say ?
Salfino ( Michael Salfino , FiveThirtyEight contributor ) : It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brady things in the context of his amazing history .
But this is the first time Brady has ever been swept by a division opponent in the regular season .
( The 2010 Jets did beat him twice , but one of those games was in the postseason . )
But he was horrible .
And things were supposed to get better for him in light of his recent solid play with the addition of Antonio Brown , who is living with him .
Maybe Brady isn ’ t sleeping .
Maybe this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Automobiles ” situation .
neil : According to our QB Elo metric , this was the second-worst game of Brady ’ s entire career — the only one worse was the infamous “ Lawyer Milloy Game ” in 2003 : joshua.hermsmeyer : That seems more in line with what I watched .
Brady ’ s performance was the fourth-worst by a QB this season by ESPN ’ s Total QBR metric ( 209 yards passing , zero touchdowns , three interceptions , three sacks and 5.5 yards per attempt ) .
The Bucs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run — breaking a league record by rushing just five times .
But they also abandoned play-action , which was a mistake .
They ran action on 7.3 percent of their plays , which was second-worst/fewest on the week , ahead of only the Steelers .
Salfino : But Josh , isn ’ t it hard to run play-action when you ’ re down 28-0 before the beer is cold ?
joshua.hermsmeyer : Mike , I ’ ve seen no evidence to support that beyond hand-waving platitudes and nods to “ common football @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this like play-action on third-and-21 ?
I ’ m not even being snarky .
Teams do run that , occasionally .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Play-action is bad on third-and-long , that is true .
But Brady had lots of passing attempts on first-and-10 as well .
Salfino : Remember , too , that play-action might increase the chances of getting hit ( and I assume even more so when you ’ re trailing badly ) , and Brady does not like that .
I mean , no one likes that .
But he REALLY @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : You also probably want your QB throwing better balls than this : Salfino : They called the Four Seasons pass and got the Four Seasons Landscaping pass by mistake , I ’ m fairly certain .
neil : That play was basically the game in a nutshell for Brady .
He did not handle the Saints ’ pressure well at ALL .
Salfino : Brady is the first former Super Bowl MVP QB to lose by 35+ at home since Joe Namath with the Lou Holtz-coached Jets in 1976. neil : I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away from the Saints routing the Bucs aside from the obvious .
Brady was terrible and — maybe more importantly — it was a strength-on-strength matchup on the other side of the ball , New Orleans ’ s offense vs. Tampa ’ s defense .
And the Saints won that matchup decisively .
sara.ziegler : That was maybe what surprised me most , Neil — how good the Saints offense looked against what we considered to be a stellar defense .
neil : I have been guilty of focusing on Drew Brees ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anybody this season .
But on passes thrown more than 10 yards downfield , he went 7 for 8 with 130 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday .
And that was against what had been maybe the best pass defense in football this year going into the game .
joshua.hermsmeyer : All I know is that according to Cris Collinsworth , it takes a man to bring down Taysom Hill , so perhaps that explains everything !
Salfino : I hate to say this , but we have to give Hill some credit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I really , really hate to say this .
neil : It was another one of those Taysom Hill stat lines : at least 20 yards passing , rushing AND receiving .
sara.ziegler : So , this is a question I had : Was last night ’ s game the right way to use Hill ?
Or … is there no right way to use Hill ?
Salfino : Maybe this is Sean Payton being really creative with his roster .
I may just have to get over the Hill hate .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cooler.
” He was William H. Macy .
Now , though , he ’ s actually adding value , fairly consistently .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Hill attempted two passes last night , and we got to see him operate as a pocket QB on one of them , which is rare .
He completed the pass but threw it behind Jared Cook .
I think Hill is just a box of chocolates every time they trot him out there .
neil : He ’ s a luxury item , but the Saints are looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have that luxury .
sara.ziegler : So let ’ s move on to the other big upset of the weekend : The Bills rather handily took down Russell Wilson and the Seahawks .
Salfino : Seattle ’ s defense looked like it propped up Josh Allen for MVP .
neil : We knew that defense was bad .
But it is BAD .
joshua.hermsmeyer : What I took away was that Pete Carroll planned to stop the run , and the Bills planned to pass .
One team was right , the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was made .
I love it when a plan does not at all come together .
neil : According to ESPN ’ s Stats & Information Group , the Bills passed on each of their first 21 first-down plays of the game .
That is your kind of play-calling , Josh !
neil : They ended up passing 23 times and running 10 times on first down despite leading for all but 1:25 of the game .
Basically the opposite of the “ establish the run ” playbook .
Salfino : The Seahawks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the point of acquiring Jamal Adams ?
They could have finished last in defense without him , no ?
sara.ziegler : What happened to Russ in that game ?
He still had 390 yards passing , but he had four turnovers .
neil : He faced quite a bit of pressure — on 45 percent of his dropbacks .
( He at least handled it better than Brady ! )
But it was impressive to see the Bills slow him down some .
Buffalo ’ s defense was one of their biggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picks was on fourth down — it shouldn ’ t even count .
I think Wilson played at his usual level , but he was Marino-ed in the sense that he just could not keep up with his defense .
sara.ziegler : Hold on — that pick was on fourth down , yes , but it was in the end zone , on a play from the Buffalo 5-yard line .
That ’ s an interception you expect Kirk Cousins to throw … not Russ .
neil : We need a COUSINS stat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even in the end zone , a fourth-down pick on a desperation heave has no negative expected value , correct ?
joshua.hermsmeyer : I guess we expect Chef Russ to be above expectation most of the time .
Salfino : My point is that no one was open , and he was running for his life .
Derek Carr would have thrown it in the stands to be safe , we know .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Just as an aside , Carr had a deep completion on a similar rollout to his right on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation , however , not fourth down ) .
sara.ziegler : So what did we learn from the Seahawks game ?
Is there anything they can do to fix their defense ?
And are the Bills just … pretty good ?
Salfino : The last team to score that many points on a Pete Carroll defense was Stanford .
I ’ m serious .
neil : Apparently the fix is to just have other teams do what Carroll gameplans for .
As you said , Sara , it ’ s always annoying as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do that .
Salfino : I think Seattle is a fun team that can ’ t win the Super Bowl despite having an MVP-level QB because their pass defense is historically bad .
They give up nearly 300 yards a game just to wide receivers .
neil : And the Bills are just a fascinating team .
They ’ re 7-2 but have outscored opponents by just 9 points ( which would generally earn you only 4.7 wins in nine games ) .
Yet they will have games like this !
Salfino : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yards to seven different receivers .
I think the question for the Bills is whether Josh Allen is too dependent on matchups .
Ironically , the Bills are the AFC ’ s Seahawks .
The offense , I ’ m shocked to say , is WAY better than its defense , and the defense , though not as bad as Seattle ’ s , is still pretty bad .
And bad in the worst way — against the pass .
Also Seattle is just plus-31 in point differential .
Miami is nearly TWICE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the weather .
If you don ’ t like it , just wait awhile .
sara.ziegler : What a weird season this is shaping up to be .
Salfino : But Sara , isn ’ t every season weird in the sense that we couldn ’ t have seen what has happened happening ?
To me that ’ s the beauty of sports .
Every season is weird in its own way .
sara.ziegler : LOL .
I mean , sure .
But it definitely felt last year like you had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were .
Salfino : I think many this year would have said the Saints were the best NFC team and the Chiefs the best AFC team .
Is that where we are right now ?
sara.ziegler : My point is that this year , a Garrett Gilbert-led Cowboys team can almost beat an undefeated Steelers team !
joshua.hermsmeyer : Cowboys QB had a decent game , with a roughly 62 QBR , and it wasn ’ t like Ezekiel Elliott was helping much .
Kept it interesting to the very end .
neil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gilbert ’ s name in Tecmo Super Bowl , pretty sure .
Salfino : The question is whether we believe in the Steelers .
It ’ s the first Pittsburgh team to go 8-0 , and the other years when they were the last unbeaten , they went to the Super Bowl .
( OK , it has only happened twice , but still . )
But I don ’ t believe in Ben Roethlisberger any more .
Even against the horrible Cowboys , his efficiency was meh , and Pittsburgh had one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joshua.hermsmeyer : I very much would like Neil to write the definitive piece on why the Steelers are the worst 8-0 team ever .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Yes , I am a coward and am avoiding that heat .
Which one of you should I assign this story to ?
?
Salfino : The Chiefs would slaughter Pittsburgh , I ’ m sorry .
Patrick Mahomes , man .
He ’ s quietly having one of the greatest seasons in league history .
sara.ziegler : So that was the other weird game Sunday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that convincing to me .
But it sounds like none of you is worried about them ?
joshua.hermsmeyer : I just have no reason to doubt Mahomes ’ s greatness any more .
His prime is going to last for years , and the Chiefs ’ Super Bowl window will always be open so long as he ’ s healthy .
neil : I don ’ t disagree .
Although we should mention that K.C.
’ s defense didn ’ t look overly great against Carolina .
And they would have lost if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kicker .
neil : I was SO hoping he would make it .
Just to see it happen .
Salfino : Only mules can make that kick , Neil .
joshua.hermsmeyer : So the Chiefs ’ defense has not been bad against the pass .
They ’ ve allowed 6.3 net yards per pass attempt ( that factors in sacks ) .
Does this mean anything for their performance going forward ?
Probably not , but I ’ m not convinced the defense is a real liability .
Salfino : I agree with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
defense for me .
None .
neil : Yeah , they ’ ve actually improved some on defense since last year according to expected points added ( EPA ) , from 13th to 10th .
sara.ziegler : That surprises me !
Not that I remembered their defense as being amazing last year , but I didn ’ t realize it had gotten better .
neil : And they still have the league ’ s No .
1 passing offense .
Pretty good recipe for a repeat !
( Having said that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
1 overall this week in both EPA and Simple Rating System ranking . )
Salfino : The Chiefs have 7.6 net yards per passing attempt on offense and are giving up 5.9 on defense .
Plus 1.7 in this stat puts them in solid “ Super Bowl contender ” territory , in my opinion .
sara.ziegler : It was interesting that Allen , Wilson and Mahomes were the top three in passing yards this week , with weirdly different outcomes .
Salfino : I feel like we have to get Josh to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dalvin Cook .
( Since all RBs are his mortal enemy . )
Seriously , that dude is the fastest RB in uniform I ’ ve ever seen .
Salfino : The MVP stuff is coming for Cook , which is ridiculous but which will drive Josh crazy .
Comedy will ensue .
joshua.hermsmeyer : The Vikings led the league in rushing EPA per play last week : 0.30 .
Their pass EPA per play in the game where Cook inserted himself into the MVP conversation ?
0.58. sara.ziegler : And yet no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

Did The Saints And Bills Show The Bucs And Seahawks Who The Real Contenders Are?
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): After tonight’s scintillating Jets-Patriots matchup, we will officially be halfway through the season, with every team having played at least eight games. And boy, did a few of those Week 9 games deliver some interesting twists to the season.
In last week’s chat, we talked about the four teams leading our model, noting “the weakness of that group.” That weakness was exposed this week, as Tampa Bay and Seattle lost big while Pittsburgh and Kansas City needed second-half comebacks to win. Let’s start with the most lopsided loss: Tampa Bay’s 38-3 dismantling at the hands of New Orleans. The Saints swept the season series; do they just have the Bucs’ number?
joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): I can imagine a world where Sean Payton and Bill Belichick get together and chat casually. Perhaps those talks occurred right before games against Tampa Bay this year — who can really say?
Good chatting. Let me know if you ever want my input on a game plan or anything. pic.twitter.com/RFUHAWTdRM — Mike Sando (@SandoNFL) November 9, 2020
neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): Hah!
Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor): It’s always weird to talk about bad Tom Brady things in the context of his amazing history. But this is the first time Brady has ever been swept by a division opponent in the regular season. (The 2010 Jets did beat him twice, but one of those games was in the postseason.) But he was horrible. And things were supposed to get better for him in light of his recent solid play with the addition of Antonio Brown, who is living with him.
Maybe Brady isn’t sleeping. Maybe this is a “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” situation.
neil: According to our QB Elo metric, this was the second-worst game of Brady’s entire career — the only one worse was the infamous “Lawyer Milloy Game” in 2003:
joshua.hermsmeyer: That seems more in line with what I watched. Brady’s performance was the fourth-worst by a QB this season by ESPN’s Total QBR metric (209 yards passing, zero touchdowns, three interceptions, three sacks and 5.5 yards per attempt). The Bucs fell behind early and completely abandoned the run — breaking a league record by rushing just five times. But they also abandoned play-action, which was a mistake. They ran action on 7.3 percent of their plays, which was second-worst/fewest on the week, ahead of only the Steelers.
Salfino: But Josh, isn’t it hard to run play-action when you’re down 28-0 before the beer is cold?
joshua.hermsmeyer: Mike, I’ve seen no evidence to support that beyond hand-waving platitudes and nods to “common football knowledge.”
Salfino: Isn’t this like play-action on third-and-21? I’m not even being snarky. Teams do run that, occasionally.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Play-action is bad on third-and-long, that is true. But Brady had lots of passing attempts on first-and-10 as well.
Salfino: Remember, too, that play-action might increase the chances of getting hit (and I assume even more so when you’re trailing badly), and Brady does not like that. I mean, no one likes that. But he REALLY doesn’t like it.
joshua.hermsmeyer: You also probably want your QB throwing better balls than this:
https://twitter.com/friscojosh/status/1325645384073445376
Salfino: They called the Four Seasons pass and got the Four Seasons Landscaping pass by mistake, I’m fairly certain.
neil: That play was basically the game in a nutshell for Brady. He did not handle the Saints’ pressure well at ALL.
Salfino: Brady is the first former Super Bowl MVP QB to lose by 35+ at home since Joe Namath with the Lou Holtz-coached Jets in 1976.
neil: I’m not sure what to take away from the Saints routing the Bucs aside from the obvious. Brady was terrible and — maybe more importantly — it was a strength-on-strength matchup on the other side of the ball, New Orleans’s offense vs. Tampa’s defense. And the Saints won that matchup decisively.
sara.ziegler: That was maybe what surprised me most, Neil — how good the Saints offense looked against what we considered to be a stellar defense.
neil: I have been guilty of focusing on Drew Brees’ lack of deep passing as much as anybody this season. But on passes thrown more than 10 yards downfield, he went 7 for 8 with 130 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday. And that was against what had been maybe the best pass defense in football this year going into the game.
joshua.hermsmeyer: All I know is that according to Cris Collinsworth, it takes a man to bring down Taysom Hill, so perhaps that explains everything!
Salfino: I hate to say this, but we have to give Hill some credit for the Saints offense. I mean, I really, really hate to say this.
neil: LOL
sara.ziegler: Wowwwww
neil: It was another one of those Taysom Hill stat lines: at least 20 yards passing, rushing AND receiving.
sara.ziegler: So, this is a question I had: Was last night’s game the right way to use Hill?
Or … is there no right way to use Hill?
Salfino: Maybe this is Sean Payton being really creative with his roster. I may just have to get over the Hill hate.
Hill used to be like “The Cooler.” He was William H. Macy. Now, though, he’s actually adding value, fairly consistently.
More vanity projects in football!
joshua.hermsmeyer: Hill attempted two passes last night, and we got to see him operate as a pocket QB on one of them, which is rare. He completed the pass but threw it behind Jared Cook. I think Hill is just a box of chocolates every time they trot him out there.
neil: He’s a luxury item, but the Saints are looking like an upscale team, so they have that luxury.
sara.ziegler: So let’s move on to the other big upset of the weekend: The Bills rather handily took down Russell Wilson and the Seahawks.
Salfino: Seattle’s defense looked like it propped up Josh Allen for MVP.
neil: We knew that defense was bad. But it is BAD.
joshua.hermsmeyer: What I took away was that Pete Carroll planned to stop the run, and the Bills planned to pass. One team was right, the other was wrong, and nary an adjustment was made.
Pete Carroll said he wasn't expecting the Bills to completely abandon their running game. "We had a real nice plan" for the Bills running game. Instead, Josh Allen picked apart Seattle's secondary. — Joe Fann (@Joe_Fann) November 8, 2020
sara.ziegler: That was AMAZING.
I love it when a plan does not at all come together.
neil: According to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group, the Bills passed on each of their first 21 first-down plays of the game.
That is your kind of play-calling, Josh!
joshua.hermsmeyer: It was glorious.
neil: They ended up passing 23 times and running 10 times on first down despite leading for all but 1:25 of the game. Basically the opposite of the “establish the run” playbook.
Salfino: The Seahawks are just sickening on defense. What was the point of acquiring Jamal Adams? They could have finished last in defense without him, no?
sara.ziegler: What happened to Russ in that game? He still had 390 yards passing, but he had four turnovers.
neil: He faced quite a bit of pressure — on 45 percent of his dropbacks. (He at least handled it better than Brady!)
But it was impressive to see the Bills slow him down some. Buffalo’s defense was one of their biggest contender-question-marks.
Salfino: One of his picks was on fourth down — it shouldn’t even count. I think Wilson played at his usual level, but he was Marino-ed in the sense that he just could not keep up with his defense.
sara.ziegler: Hold on — that pick was on fourth down, yes, but it was in the end zone, on a play from the Buffalo 5-yard line. That’s an interception you expect Kirk Cousins to throw … not Russ.
neil: We need a COUSINS stat for red-zone picks.
sara.ziegler: 🤣
Salfino: But even in the end zone, a fourth-down pick on a desperation heave has no negative expected value, correct?
joshua.hermsmeyer: I guess we expect Chef Russ to be above expectation most of the time.
Salfino: My point is that no one was open, and he was running for his life. Derek Carr would have thrown it in the stands to be safe, we know.
I will defend Russ!
joshua.hermsmeyer: Just as an aside, Carr had a deep completion on a similar rollout to his right on Sunday. (It was a third-and-4 situation, however, not fourth down).
sara.ziegler: So what did we learn from the Seahawks game? Is there anything they can do to fix their defense? And are the Bills just … pretty good?
Salfino: The last team to score that many points on a Pete Carroll defense was Stanford. I’m serious.
neil: Apparently the fix is to just have other teams do what Carroll gameplans for. As you said, Sara, it’s always annoying as a coach when they don’t do that.
Salfino: I think Seattle is a fun team that can’t win the Super Bowl despite having an MVP-level QB because their pass defense is historically bad. They give up nearly 300 yards a game just to wide receivers.
neil: And the Bills are just a fascinating team. They’re 7-2 but have outscored opponents by just 9 points (which would generally earn you only 4.7 wins in nine games). Yet they will have games like this!
Salfino: Allen completed passes of at least 20 yards to seven different receivers. I think the question for the Bills is whether Josh Allen is too dependent on matchups.
Ironically, the Bills are the AFC’s Seahawks. The offense, I’m shocked to say, is WAY better than its defense, and the defense, though not as bad as Seattle’s, is still pretty bad. And bad in the worst way — against the pass.
Also Seattle is just plus-31 in point differential. Miami is nearly TWICE as good.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Defense is like the weather. If you don’t like it, just wait awhile.
sara.ziegler: What a weird season this is shaping up to be.
Salfino: But Sara, isn’t every season weird in the sense that we couldn’t have seen what has happened happening? To me that’s the beauty of sports. Every season is weird in its own way.
sara.ziegler: LOL. I mean, sure. But it definitely felt last year like you had a decent sense of who the best teams were.
Salfino: I think many this year would have said the Saints were the best NFC team and the Chiefs the best AFC team. Is that where we are right now?
sara.ziegler: My point is that this year, a Garrett Gilbert-led Cowboys team can almost beat an undefeated Steelers team!
joshua.hermsmeyer: Cowboys QB had a decent game, with a roughly 62 QBR, and it wasn’t like Ezekiel Elliott was helping much. Kept it interesting to the very end.
neil: “Cowboys QB” is Garrett Gilbert’s name in Tecmo Super Bowl, pretty sure.
joshua.hermsmeyer: 100 percent.
Salfino: The question is whether we believe in the Steelers. This is the first Pittsburgh team to go 8-0, and the other years when they were the last unbeaten, they went to the Super Bowl. (OK, it has only happened twice, but still.)
But I don’t believe in Ben Roethlisberger any more. Even against the horrible Cowboys, his efficiency was meh, and Pittsburgh had one TD going into the fourth quarter.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I very much would like Neil to write the definitive piece on why the Steelers are the worst 8-0 team ever.
neil: RIP my mentions.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Yes, I am a coward and am avoiding that heat.
sara.ziegler: Hahahaha
Which one of you should I assign this story to??
neil: Triple-byline!
Salfino: The Chiefs would slaughter Pittsburgh, I’m sorry.
Patrick Mahomes, man. He’s quietly having one of the greatest seasons in league history.
neil: 25-to-1 TD-INT ratio ain’t too shabby!
sara.ziegler: So that was the other weird game Sunday. The Chiefs didn’t look all that convincing to me. But it sounds like none of you is worried about them?
joshua.hermsmeyer: I just have no reason to doubt Mahomes’s greatness any more. His prime is going to last for years, and the Chiefs’ Super Bowl window will always be open so long as he’s healthy.
Salfino: Co-sign.
neil: I don’t disagree. Although we should mention that K.C.’s defense didn’t look overly great against Carolina. And they would have lost if Tom Dempsey had been the Panthers’ kicker.
Salfino: That 67-yard field goal attempt was hilarious.
neil: I was SO hoping he would make it. Just to see it happen.
Salfino: Only mules can make that kick, Neil.
neil: And Tony Danza.
joshua.hermsmeyer: So the Chiefs’ defense has not been bad against the pass. They’ve allowed 6.3 net yards per pass attempt (that factors in sacks). Does this mean anything for their performance going forward? Probably not, but I’m not convinced the defense is a real liability.
Salfino: I agree with Josh. No worries about the K.C. defense for me. None.
neil: Yeah, they’ve actually improved some on defense since last year according to expected points added (EPA), from 13th to 10th.
sara.ziegler: That surprises me! Not that I remembered their defense as being amazing last year, but I didn’t realize it had gotten better.
neil: And they still have the league’s No. 1 passing offense. Pretty good recipe for a repeat! (Having said that, Baltimore actually surpassed Kansas City for No. 1 overall this week in both EPA and Simple Rating System ranking.)
Salfino: The Chiefs have 7.6 net yards per passing attempt on offense and are giving up 5.9 on defense. Plus 1.7 in this stat puts them in solid “Super Bowl contender” territory, in my opinion.
sara.ziegler: It was interesting that Allen, Wilson and Mahomes were the top three in passing yards this week, with weirdly different outcomes.
(We don’t need to mention the top rusher, who had 206 yards on the day. 😉)
Salfino: I feel like we have to get Josh to say something good about his opponent, Dalvin Cook. (Since all RBs are his mortal enemy.)
neil: LET DALVIN COOK.
Salfino: Love that!
Seriously, that dude is the fastest RB in uniform I’ve ever seen.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I HAVE A STAT.
Salfino: The MVP stuff is coming for Cook, which is ridiculous but which will drive Josh crazy. Comedy will ensue.
joshua.hermsmeyer: The Vikings led the league in rushing EPA per play last week: 0.30. Their pass EPA per play in the game where Cook inserted himself into the MVP conversation? 0.58.
sara.ziegler: And yet no one is saying “Let Kirk cook.”
Literally no one.
joshua.hermsmeyer: SMH
Salfino: Maybe opposing defenses?
sara.ziegler: LOL
Check out our latest NFL predictions.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Democrats Needed A Big Blue Wave To Win The Senate, And It Looks Like They Didn’t Get It

At this time last week , it seemed like Democrats had a good chance to win control of the U.S. Senate ( FiveThirtyEight ’ s forecast put the odds at 3-in-4 ) .
There was a clear path .
Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama would likely lose ( he did ) , but Democrats were favorites to flip four GOP-held seats , turning the current 53-47 GOP-controlled Senate into a 50-50 chamber with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Senate president and tiebreaking vote .
There was even an outside chance that Democrats would win 52 , 53 or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majority .
Biden is set to be president .
What comes next ?
| FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast Things aren ’ t looking so rosy for the Democrats now .
The party could still win that Senate majority , but it probably needs an unlikely sweep in Georgia .
A state that last elected a Democratic U.S. senator in 2000 would need to decide to elect two Democrats at the same time , as both the state ’ s Senate seats — the one that was normally scheduled election this year and a special @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a 2019 retirement — head for a runoff on Jan 5 .
So what happened to Democrats ’ seemingly good Senate prospects ?
At root , it looks like the overall national political environment will end up being Democratic-leaning but not overwhelmingly so — votes are still being counted , so it ’ s hard to put an exact number on this yet .
The Senate ’ s structure gives it a Republican bias — the median seat is 6-7 percentage points more GOP-leaning than the nation , so Democrats need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And while the party did well in 2020 , it looks it didn ’ t quite clear that bar .
The most obvious path for Democrats to win a majority was by gaining seats in Colorado and Maine , two states where Joe Biden was expected to win handily , and in Arizona and North Carolina , two states where Biden was narrowly favored .
After all , in 2016 , presidential and Senate races were perfectly correlated — no Senate candidate won a state where his or her party didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We ’ ll come back to the Maine race in a bit , but Colorado went as expected , with former Gov .
John Hicklenlooper comfortably defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in a state Biden also won easily .
In Arizona , Democrat Mark Kelly ran a bit ahead of Biden and won that race over incumbent Republican Sen. Martha McSally even as Arizona remains too close to call at the presidential level .
But Democrat Cal Cunningham in North Carolina basically received the same percentage of the vote as Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a slightly lower percentage than preelection polls suggested it might be .
Biden looks likely to fall just short in the Tar Heel State , and Cunningham seems likely to lose to incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis as well , although North Carolina is still counting votes and ABC News has not yet projected a winner in either race .
Meanwhile , although it looked like Democrats had a chance in redder states if there was a strong enough blue wave , those races ended up being out of reach .
Democrat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ran about even with Biden .
That wasn ’ t enough for either Democrat in increasingly GOP-leaning Iowa , and Greenfield lost to incumbent Republican Sen. Joni Ernst .
In Georgia , Democrat Jon Ossoff ran a bit behind Biden , but that was not a state Democrats were counting on for their route to a Senate majority .
Ossoff got 48 percent of the vote and incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue finished just below 50 percent , setting up a Jan. 5 runoff .
Republicans ended up winning easily in Senate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carolina , all states where some pre-election polls showed fairly tight margins .
President Trump comfortably won all three states , and the Democratic candidates in these races , unlike GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine , were not able to appeal to voters who backed the other party ’ s presidential candidate .
OK , so what about Maine ?
It turns out Collins is good at politics .
A few Senate races have not yet been called , but so far , Collins is the only Senate candidate who won in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the presidential level .
How did she pull this off ?
It ’ s almost certainly the case that some voters backed Biden but also Collins .
And that makes sense : Collins has long tried to carve out her own brand as a moderate Republican and has sometimes acted on that .
In terms of voting records , the Maine senator was the Senate Republican least likely to vote in line with Trump ’ s positions .
She has broken with her party in some high-profile votes , most notably opposing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Affordable Care Act and Amy Coney Barrett ’ s confirmation to the Supreme Court last month .
In the run-up to this year ’ s election , Collins repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether she was personally voting for Trump .
All of those moves probably helped her in this left-leaning state , even if she annoyed Maine Democratic activists by voting for Brett Kavanaugh ’ s confirmation in 2018 and giving a speech ahead of that vote in which she bluntly denounced her critics .
So right now , it looks like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North Carolina race where the result hasn ’ t officially been projected yet ) , Democrats 48 .
Let ’ s look closely at the other three .
It ’ s hard to imagine Alaska incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan losing in a GOP-leaning state against Al Gross , who is officially an independent but is being backed by Democratic Party groups .
That said , less than 60 percent of the expected votes there have been tabulated and the overwhelming majority of those left are absentee ballots , which are likely to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not guaranteed , and it may be a while before an official winner is declared in that race .
But Georgia is the real story of the Senate now .
Incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler was appointed to her seat earlier this year , and she ran in a special election in which the top two candidates from either party would advance .
Democrats coalesced behind Atlanta pastor Raphael Warnock , who received the most votes of any candidate in this first round , about 33 percent .
He didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Loeffler had to pull ahead of GOP congressman Doug Collins to make it to the runoff , and she narrowly did ( 26-20 percent ) .
So it ’ s Warnock vs. Loeffler and Ossoff v. Perdue in Round 2 on Jan. 5 .
The Georgia races could be super close — at least going by the results of the November election .
In the race for the Loeffler seat , the total vote for the eight Democrats who got at least 0.5 percent support , including Warnock , was around 48.4 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans who got at least 0.5 percent , including Leoffler , was about 49.4 percent .
As of right now , Ossoff is around 47.9 percent of the vote , compared to Perdue ’ s 49.7 percent .
Biden is at 49.5 percent in Georgia , Trump at 49.3 .
I assume we at FiveThirtyEight will do many , many more stories about Georgia if those two races end up being the ones that will determine control of the Senate , so I will not delve too deeply here into how those races @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few days after the election , one story is clear — Democrats can probably only win a Senate majority with two wins in Georgia , which illustrates the decline of their once-bright Senate hopes .

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

At this time last week, it seemed like Democrats had a good chance to win control of the U.S. Senate (FiveThirtyEight’s forecast put the odds at 3-in-4). There was a clear path. Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama would likely lose (he did), but Democrats were favorites to flip four GOP-held seats, turning the current 53-47 GOP-controlled Senate into a 50-50 chamber with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Senate president and tiebreaking vote. There was even an outside chance that Democrats would win 52, 53 or 54 seats and have a real governing majority.
Biden is set to be president. What comes next? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Things aren’t looking so rosy for the Democrats now. The party could still win that Senate majority, but it probably needs an unlikely sweep in Georgia. A state that last elected a Democratic U.S. senator in 2000 would need to decide to elect two Democrats at the same time, as both the state’s Senate seats — the one that was normally scheduled election this year and a special election to fill a seat left vacant by a 2019 retirement — head for a runoff on Jan 5.
So what happened to Democrats’ seemingly good Senate prospects? At root, it looks like the overall national political environment will end up being Democratic-leaning but not overwhelmingly so — votes are still being counted, so it’s hard to put an exact number on this yet. The Senate’s structure gives it a Republican bias — the median seat is 6-7 percentage points more GOP-leaning than the nation, so Democrats need to really overperform nationally to win the chamber. And while the party did well in 2020, it looks it didn’t quite clear that bar.
The most obvious path for Democrats to win a majority was by gaining seats in Colorado and Maine, two states where Joe Biden was expected to win handily, and in Arizona and North Carolina, two states where Biden was narrowly favored. After all, in 2016, presidential and Senate races were perfectly correlated — no Senate candidate won a state where his or her party didn’t win at the presidential level too.
We’ll come back to the Maine race in a bit, but Colorado went as expected, with former Gov. John Hicklenlooper comfortably defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in a state Biden also won easily. In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly ran a bit ahead of Biden and won that race over incumbent Republican Sen. Martha McSally even as Arizona remains too close to call at the presidential level.
But Democrat Cal Cunningham in North Carolina basically received the same percentage of the vote as Biden did. In both cases, that was a slightly lower percentage than preelection polls suggested it might be. Biden looks likely to fall just short in the Tar Heel State, and Cunningham seems likely to lose to incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis as well, although North Carolina is still counting votes and ABC News has not yet projected a winner in either race.
Meanwhile, although it looked like Democrats had a chance in redder states if there was a strong enough blue wave, those races ended up being out of reach.
Democrat Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, like Cunningham, ran about even with Biden. That wasn’t enough for either Democrat in increasingly GOP-leaning Iowa, and Greenfield lost to incumbent Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.
What Trump revealed about America | FiveThirtyEight
In Georgia, Democrat Jon Ossoff ran a bit behind Biden, but that was not a state Democrats were counting on for their route to a Senate majority. Ossoff got 48 percent of the vote and incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue finished just below 50 percent, setting up a Jan. 5 runoff.
Republicans ended up winning easily in Senate races in Kansas, Montana and South Carolina, all states where some pre-election polls showed fairly tight margins. President Trump comfortably won all three states, and the Democratic candidates in these races, unlike GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, were not able to appeal to voters who backed the other party’s presidential candidate.
OK, so what about Maine? It turns out Collins is good at politics.
A few Senate races have not yet been called, but so far, Collins is the only Senate candidate who won in a state that her party lost at the presidential level. How did she pull this off? It’s almost certainly the case that some voters backed Biden but also Collins. And that makes sense: Collins has long tried to carve out her own brand as a moderate Republican and has sometimes acted on that. In terms of voting records, the Maine senator was the Senate Republican least likely to vote in line with Trump’s positions. She has broken with her party in some high-profile votes, most notably opposing the GOP’s 2017 attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court last month. In the run-up to this year’s election, Collins repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether she was personally voting for Trump.
All of those moves probably helped her in this left-leaning state, even if she annoyed Maine Democratic activists by voting for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018 and giving a speech ahead of that vote in which she bluntly denounced her critics.
So right now, it looks like Republicans control 49 seats (including the North Carolina race where the result hasn’t officially been projected yet), Democrats 48. Let’s look closely at the other three. It’s hard to imagine Alaska incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan losing in a GOP-leaning state against Al Gross, who is officially an independent but is being backed by Democratic Party groups. That said, less than 60 percent of the expected votes there have been tabulated and the overwhelming majority of those left are absentee ballots, which are likely to be Democratic-leaning. So Sullivan’s victory is not guaranteed, and it may be a while before an official winner is declared in that race.
But Georgia is the real story of the Senate now. Incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler was appointed to her seat earlier this year, and she ran in a special election in which the top two candidates from either party would advance. Democrats coalesced behind Atlanta pastor Raphael Warnock, who received the most votes of any candidate in this first round, about 33 percent. He didn’t really have any strong Democratic competition. Loeffler had to pull ahead of GOP congressman Doug Collins to make it to the runoff, and she narrowly did (26-20 percent). So it’s Warnock vs. Loeffler and Ossoff v. Perdue in Round 2 on Jan. 5.
The Georgia races could be super close — at least going by the results of the November election. In the race for the Loeffler seat, the total vote for the eight Democrats who got at least 0.5 percent support, including Warnock, was around 48.4 percent. The total vote for the six Republicans who got at least 0.5 percent, including Leoffler, was about 49.4 percent. As of right now, Ossoff is around 47.9 percent of the vote, compared to Perdue’s 49.7 percent. Biden is at 49.5 percent in Georgia, Trump at 49.3.
I assume we at FiveThirtyEight will do many, many more stories about Georgia if those two races end up being the ones that will determine control of the Senate, so I will not delve too deeply here into how those races might shake out. But only a few days after the election, one story is clear — Democrats can probably only win a Senate majority with two wins in Georgia, which illustrates the decline of their once-bright Senate hopes.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-09--Updates: Tracking The Unresolved 2020 Races

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