Nate Silver has Greg Orman favored to win Kansas senate seat

Nate Silver has made a name for himself getting his presidential forecasts spot-on perfect.

So when he speaks about U.S. Senate races, people listen.

His latest thinking on Kansas’ much-talked-about U.S. Senate race?

Independent Greg Orman has a 61 percent chance of beating Republican incumbent Pat Roberts. His expected winning margin is 3 percentage points.

Silver bases his predictions on all manner of polls and political data.

Despite his prediction in the Kansas race, Silver says Republicans have a 58.5 percent chance of winning a majority. And Democrats have a 41.5 percent chance of keeping their majority.

That goes against conventional wisdom, which suggests that if Roberts loses in Kansas, Republicans probabaly won’t regain control of the chamber.

This story was originally published September 23, 2014 at 4:57 PM.