Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Some of it may be that while it may be the Supreme Court has become more partisan, it's not nearly at the same hyperwarp speed at which Congress has become more partisan, so it provides an important constraint overall. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I'd also note, in general, that there have been a lot of bad predictions from liberals when it comes to how the Supreme Court would behave. Every court term, including this most recent one, brings a major "surprise" ruling or two. It's been a blind spot for analysis. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@juliaioffe It was a mix of both. I got a lot of shit from people before the election for saying sure, Trump might try things, and that unto itself might be damaging, but it was going to be hard for it to actually succeed unless the election was *very* close. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Trump did exactly what he said he was going to do, which wasn't surprising. A lot of people thought it was *going to work* because of not-so-well-formulated theories about "SCOTUS stopping the vote count" and the like. But the courts have resoundingly rejected Trump's attempts. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jbarro I think the finger buildings have turned the skyline into a mess from a lot of angles. It's mostly OK from within Manhattan or say looking north to south. But viewed from the side in say Queens or NC it looks awkward, especially from some distance away. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DiseaseEcology New York City has a lot of good data on death rates and other metrics by age: https://t.co/Zy2E1TZOe7 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I had no idea these were the 2nd through 5th tallest buildings in New York. All completely unremarkable, too. https://t.co/t05N60JN8f https://t.co/dK3mdG77Mw — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

c) There's a fine line between engaging in counterfactuals and "this would have happened if circumstances were different" becoming an unfalsifiable theory. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

b) Here's a litmus test. Suppose on Nov. 2 I'd described the outcome of the election—Biden would win 4 key states by <=1 point, all of which have GOP legislatures and two of which have GOP governors, one of whom is Brian Kemp. Would liberals have been freaking out? (Yes.) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

a) Maybe! But this election was *pretty* close and the courts were *very* unsympathetic to Trump. What if it was Florida-in-2000 close? So close it wasn't clear who really won? Maybe that's different. But Florida was INCREDIBLY close, a once-in-several-lifetimes occurrence. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's a lot of "if it were closer or X and Y were different, SCOTUS would have stolen the election for Trump" in response to this, to which I have a few different responses: — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@briankoppelman It was about strength-of-schedule adjustments for free-throw percentages for college basketball players and I felt like I needed to break the seal with something a little bigger and bolder. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Almost sent out an earnest nerdy tweet about sports statistics and I realize it's been like 8 months since I've tweeted about anything other than the election or the pandemic. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The judicial system has displayed a strong independent streak for upholding the rule of law throughout the post-election period. That's a big deal. There are various reasons to be worried about the future and I am worried to some degree. But it's a big deal. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Some folks love to always have the volume turned to 11. But to prevent future election-stealing, it would be better to think through which parts of the system have been more vulnerable and which have been more robust. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

"SCOTUS will steal the election for Trump" is one of those takes that was popular (for different reasons) both among a certain type of liberal and on the Trumpy right and obviously doesn't look too good in retrospect. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Does he mean 100 million *doses* (=~50 million people vaccinated) or 100 million people vaccinated? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This seems so counterproductive. In LA, you're not (technically speaking) allowed to go on a masked, distanced jog with one friend? Few people are going to abide by those rules and you lose your claim to being science-driven. https://t.co/0QPG0iA9VG https://t.co/2t81qA9hVT — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

We're really going to miss Clare and FiveThirtyEight will be worse without her. She has my strong recommendation and is going to do great work for whoever hires her next. I was sad and frustrated to learn about this decision by ABC News. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also, one thing that should counter vaccine hesitancy is seeing your friends/family get the vaccine—lots of people in polls say they'll get vaccinated, they just don't want to be first in line. But that process can only start once people start being vaccinated. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If you take several months to evaluate additional safety data, does that really make the public feel as though the vaccine is safer? Or do they think that "gee, this must be a really borderline case if it took that long to approve?". — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The Swiss are expected to take several months longer with their vaccine rollout than other counties. One reason is to counter "vaccine hesitancy" but IDK, public health officials have been pretty bad at this pop-psychology stuff throughout the pandemic. https://t.co/c8uQwe24zc https://t.co/iDnCi6LhbN — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @Travis_Sawchik: Some personal news: I am a free agent. I am among those being laid off as ABC News reduces staff. I look forward to wha… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's also hard to know what to make of Ossoff and Warnock. Neither has held elected office before, which is usually bad news. But they are both experienced campaigners and super familiar to voters at this point (especially Ossoff). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

How blue/red is Georgia? That's another sensitive assumption based on how many years you'd want to go back. Is an appointed incumbent like Loeffler weaker than an elected one like Perdue? Probably. Is their stock trading enough of a scandal to sway some voters? Don't know. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To be honest that's probably for the best, because there are a lot of judgment calls in terms of what the "fundamentals" look like in this election. Is this equivalent to a midterm, in which you might expect a pretty red environment vs. Biden? Maybe not given how Trump is acting. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

These are just polling averages, FYI. We are not issuing probabilistic forecasts of the Georgia runoffs, not for any philosophical reason—they'll be back in 2022/24—but because our full-fledged Congressional model isn't really designed to handle one-off races like these. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Ossoff 48.7 Purdue 47.9 Warnock 49.2 Loeffler 47.0 https://t.co/jNFvD5ZNhd — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@thehowie For sure. I think we're going to have localized outbreaks for a long time to come, especially in communities where not enough people got vaccinated for whatever reason. We need to be as comprehensive as possible. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is not an argument for letting one's guard down. On the contrary, that we might be able to achieve normality a bit sooner via vaccines is an argument for being more careful now. The more people can become immune by getting vaccinated rather than by getting sick, the better. — PolitiTweet.org