“House Forecast: G.O.P. Plus 54-55 Seats; Significantly Larger or Smaller Gains Possible”

That’s the headline today at Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com.  I really don’t want to make fun of Nate (“significantly larger or smaller gains possible”) — he’s an excellent, non-partisan and uncannily accurate pollster — but that’s really covering your bets.   The conventional wisdom is the Republicans will take the House, but by how much or how little no one can tell.  The numbers are crazy and the outliers are really out there (Gallup today shows the Republicans ahead by an unbelievable 15% on a generic ballot, something they’ve never achieved before in the history of polling).  And, of course, a lot of people predicting a sure-thing Republican win are hastening to add that so many races are too close to call and that the Democrats might do much better than expected.

The best of the hedging also comes from further polling data Silver posted today under the headline, “Five Reasons Democrats Could Beat the Polls and Hold the House”.

That’s from the same guy on the same day.

Take your pick.