I know what you’re thinking: “This is the most unappealing title to a blog post in the history of the internet.” But there’s more to the Kansas election than Nate Silver and Sam Wang. There’s the entire US Senate.

You’re right Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore. This is Washington DC. Kansas Secretary of State and Tea Party bobble-head Kris Kobach was punched in the gut by the state supreme court last night. Alluding to the concept of contradictory desires that I wrote about in my last post, Kansas Republicans were hoping for a fair fight in the race for their senate seat. Or so it seemed. Incumbent GOP senator Pat Roberts planned to slide through the midterms with a nicely set up three way election, in which his opposition would be weakly divided among Independent Greg Orman and Democrat Chad Taylor. But, after a recent turn of events, his campaign had to call in the big guys for a complete overhaul. Democrat Chad Taylor decided to drop out. This means that his votes are more likely to go to Greg Orman, the Independent, leaving Pat Roberts behind in the polls. And so, the Secretary of State is attempting to keep the election “fair” by going to the Supreme Court for help. First, he made the case that Taylor had not filled out the proper paperwork for dropping out, thus forcing the Democrat to go through with the election. Tonight, the court said no, but according to the Kansas City Star, Kobach isn’t done with his fight. He now wants the Democrats to fill in a replacement for Taylor. Never would I have thought that a candidate would plead for his opposition to stay in an election. Regardless Kobach’s attempts, statisticians are switching the results in Kansas to favor the Democrats in the outcome, considering that the liberal Independent is leading significantly in the polls. This takes me to one of my favorite feuds in the history of wonkishness. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight and Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium are presenting us with two very different predictions regarding the outcome of the Senate elections. Now, with these new revelations in Kansas, the polls have drifted further apart from each other. Down at FiveThirtyEight, Silver has the Republicans winning back the Senate with a slim 56.7% advantage. On the other hand, Wang has the Democrats destroying the GOP and keeping control of the senate with a whopping 93% advantage. So who’s right, who’s wrong? We don’t know, which is why I’m going to be glued to my television on the night of the elections. Both have written extensive articles on why each is wrong. Here is Nate Silver on his prediction and here is Sam Wang on his. Both make incredibly valid arguments, and it leaves the question of who will control the senate up in the air, especially after these sudden developments. Both of these statisticians are very well known for predicting elections flawlessly, and both of them can’t be right on this matter. Which is why I’m so excited for election day. At this point I don’t care about the senate itself, because the do nothing congress is here to stay. I’m looking forward to the end of this brawl between the nerds.