Nate Silver: 'The GOP’s chances of winning the Senate are 68.5 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast, its highest figure of the year.'

Nate Silver reports:

The GOP’s chances of winning the Senate are 68.5 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast, its highest figure of the year.

Among the 20 new polls released Thursday — it looks like there will be no Great Poll Shortage after all — two were principally responsible for Republican gains. The first was in Kentucky, where a SurveyUSA poll for the Louisville Courier-Journal had Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell ahead 48-43 over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. The poll represented a shift from SurveyUSA’s previous two polls, which had a 1 percentage-point lead for McConnell and a 2-point lead for Grimes. With SurveyUSA (a highly rated pollster) now more in line with other polls of the state, we have a clearer story in Kentucky. It’s one that probably ends in a victory for McConnell, whose chances of winning are up to 87 percent.

The guru speaks.