Franken By 27?

Who does regression analysis on a recount, for goodness' sake?

I suppose going to work is much less exciting for pollsters these days than it was a few short weeks ago, but Nate Silver isn't ready for vacay time, apparently. He's been looking closely at the day-to-day recount numbers in the Minnesota and has noted that on days where Franken has netted fewer votes compared to Election Day than Coleman, there were also more challenges to the vote. Silver used this fact to come up with a fairly complex regression that projects that after all contested ballots are judged, Franken will end up winning by 27 votes.

Silver points out that the error on these calculations could be high, though he thinks the correlation he's identified is strong. Obviously, I'm hoping he's right, but the big winner here is Nate Silver -- if he's wrong, the story dies and is buried; if he's right, he will instantaneously be the most famous pollster in America.