Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@cwarzel I think this has changed, e.g. this was once a place where you could sketch out ideas for your columns and it was sort of understood that some of them were half-baked—or simply wrong—and now there's not that understanding and anything not fully-baked can be risky. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JSEllenberg @DKThomp Although in theory it could be that vaccinated people are being less careful and non-vaccinated people are being more careful. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@JSEllenberg @DKThomp Polling and movement tracking data suggests there isn't much change in behavior in either direction, at least not for the moment. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DKThomp @notdred @conorsen @ScottGottliebMD I've seen somewhat conflicting research on this, with some suggesting that February is the seasonal peak for other coronavirus and others saying December/January. https://t.co/xOpZ2jCYfD — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@notdred @conorsen @ScottGottliebMD I think there's maybe a subtle distinction between what professionals would say if asked specifically about this or if asked to make a forecast, and what points tend to be emphasized when they're talking to the press. Also varies a lot from professional to professional. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conorsen @ScottGottliebMD You also (per survey data) have ~1/3 of the country that seems to be able and willing to avoid close contact with non-residents most of the time. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@conorsen @ScottGottliebMD I think maybe my biggest pet peeve is people discounting the effects of rising community immunity even if the herd immunity threshold per se is far from having been reached. Maybe 30% or 40% + OTHER FAIRLY MAJOR BEHAVIORAL CHANGES counts for a lot. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I'll end with the obligatory: This is not an argument for relaxing restrictions, cases are still quite high, variants are coming, so let's crush this thing further. Still, I'd love to see more debate from epis about why this is happening, e.g. if seasonality has been underrated. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

FWIW, this was not well-predicted by most of the models. As of a month ago most models still expected a plateau or a modest rise in new cases and not the sharp decline we've seen. Looks like we're pretty far outside the 95% confidence interval in fact. https://t.co/0SqfplR8de https://t.co/fzZPxE81cd — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It seems like very good news that COVID cases have fallen by almost ~2/3 in ~30 days. That plus vaccine distribution accelerating would seem to give us a fighting chance of avoiding a fourth wave as new variants become more commonplace. https://t.co/J7oV09M187 https://t.co/MQOSBhERKa — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @EricTopol: Hard to get much better than this. Now extending to age 55 and up. https://t.co/9Si8cXzcYt @Reuters @MaayanLubell w/ @Weizma… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@phl43 From what I can tell from smart epis, I think the issue is that B.1.1.7 and B.1.357 aren't necessarily in the same bucket. B.1.1.7 seems to be intrinsically more transmissible in non-immune people. B.1.357 may or may not be and its advantage may come from partial immune escape. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @perrybaconjr: In the Democratic primary last year, "the party decided" ---party elites pointed voters toward Biden over Sanders. Over t… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Biden secured the nomination right when the pandemic hit, so there wasn't the usual round of analysis about how it went down. But that Biden finished 4th in IA/5th in NH but then won the nomination with relative ease after more diverse states started voting speaks volumes. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also if you think there's a 30% chance of something and that's much higher than other people think, and the 30% chance happens, you may wind up just getting blamed for it anyway, just hypothetically speaking, not that I'd have personal experience with something like that. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

That's not to say Murkowski isn't principled; she clearly is more so than a lot of senators. But there isn't really a clear conflict with her electoral interest. She also won as a write-in/de facto independent in 2010. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's not a Republican primary in Alaska anymore; instead they have an open primary where the top 4 advance to November, and it may well be within Murkowski's narrow self-interest to appeal to the center since she was gonna get challenged from her right anyway. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ClareMalone Just trying to increase my approval rating with Iowa voters. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

A good point but Democrats coalescing around Biden in 2020 in an almost comically exaggerated fashion a la "The Party Decides" suggests that voters and parties may have learned something from 2016, which was more the exception than the norm historically. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

He's also just not necessarily that interesting when he isn't actually president and making decisions that have terrifyingly high stakes. Google searches for Trump basically fell in half or more the day he left office. https://t.co/7Q33ozx0Ue https://t.co/lCE9BHbXLP — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Of course, that tendency is why lying about the election being stolen might seem to be in Trump's strategic interest. But the combination of Jan. 6 and voters realizing that Trump isn't actually president anymore seems to have dampened enthusiasm for him a lot. https://t.co/Ob6RPlZqKS — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Of course Trump *could* win the 2024 nomination. But four years (three really, until Iowa) is a long time and voters tend to want to move on from losing candidates and there's some evidence that Republican voters are already doing this with Trump. https://t.co/w7wBiMvNHF — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@grace_panetta Great pic! It definitely gets chilly but a lot better than walking/running along the Hudson or most of the other alternatives in Manhattan... — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@grace_panetta It's not that cold! Central Park is great (and often surprisingly empty) on days like this. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@williamfleitch Yeah, I think it was a Space Shuttle Challenger scale "where were you?" moment. The Hanks news, the Gobert/NBA news and the Trump press conference all happened while I was on a flight (last time I've been on a plane!). Everyone knew they were disembarking into a different world. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Hanks-Gobert Day (March 11). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

That should be fairly obvious. Most of the opposition to school re-openings come from Democratic parents, or from institutions that tend to be run by Democrats/liberals (school boards, unions). And a Democratic president probably can sway opinion among those groups. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

"Don't count on the president to move public opinion in his favor" is generally good advice, e.g. Obama pushing really hard for the Affordable Care Act probably just made public opinion on it more polarized. But Biden on school re-openings might be the rare exception. Why? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

In terms of thinking about vaccine skepticism, I think it's strongly preferable to use polls that allow people to be in a "wait-and-see" category rather than forcing them to choose yes or no. Only 10-15% of the country are hard no's. https://t.co/vXXizHhI7s https://t.co/SfsiHyu3Mo — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

But as @ScottGottliebMD and others have noted, we're going to go from scarcity to abundance sooner than I think people are realizing. Hope the WH is hard at work on plans on how to reach vaccine-skeptical and disadvantaged groups. Or thinking about shipping excess doses abroad. — PolitiTweet.org