Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also, I hate to touch off the "where is the herd immunity threshold?" debate but one datapoint worth mentioning here is that he estimates ND and SD have 35-40% of their populations infected and cases are still rising, though more slowly than before. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Really glad this is relaunching. And I like the emphasis on "nowcasting" rather than forecasting. It's been very hard to get reliable estimates of how many people truly have COVID at any given time (since not all cases are detected) and this is a big step forward. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@chrislhayes @LPDonovan Tossup based on how many ballots are left outstanding in NY, which nobody seems entirely sure of — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I have receipts on what you did share and they did not match the 538 averages. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also, the state's data still has 7-day average positivity in NYC at under 3% (more specifically, 2.5%). https://t.co/ajrjsiKyMv https://t.co/c5mLI28fke — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Not looking to start an argument here, but at least in late October, Biden's internal polling—at least what they were sharing with reporters—was in fact very similar to the public polling. https://t.co/5D8rO8W6ka https://t.co/6f4I4JLUkF — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@bruce_arthur No but the increase is pretty modest. It's been at 2.5%ish for a while, slowly ticking upward. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@bruce_arthur You just can't learn that much from the positivity rate alone, though. If you have a positivity rate of 3% and it was 0.3% a week ago, that indicates exponential growth. If it was 3% and it was 6% a week ago, that indicates decline. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@bruce_arthur I don't buy either that a consensus of epidemiologists are saying that, or that it's robust analysis if they are. There are no magic inflection points here. And you'd measure growth by Rt, not the positivity rate. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's not as though 3% is some tried-and-true, empirically- derived heuristic that's proven robust over many past pandemics. Everybody is just making this shit up as they go along! It's completely arbitrary. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I don't get why NYC feels bound to stick by a 3% positivity rule for closing schools when we know more about the virus now, including relatively low rates of transmission in schools. If I were a parent I'd be furious. https://t.co/CfZJPDYENy — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@kmedved I'm not super sure why expectations matter here but I also think that some of those forecasts misdiagnosed the macro conditions. Defending seats won in a D+9 environment (2018) presented a lot of downside risk for D's in an era of weak incumbency. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@Neoavatara Everyone would take the presidency + the House + maybe the Senate over state legislatures. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

"Nobody owns those seats" is *especially* true in an era like now where there's a weak incumbency bonus, and it can make comparing results after a midterm and a presidential year pretty apples-to-oranges. Of note: Democrats gained a lot of seats relative to 2016 in the House. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I don't think "but they lost seats in the House!" is a great take because nobody owns those seats—everybody's term expired—and winning seats as the out-party at a midterm is a whole different (and much easier) ballgame than winning them in a presidential year. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@Neoavatara They won the House and the Senate is TBD. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Feels like everyone's running with their Why-Democrats-Lost takes even though Democrats won. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @Dereklowe: A long Q&A post on what we know about the coronavirus vaccines now, and what some of the big issues are: https://t.co/GYXrOO… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

IDK, the headline here is that half of Republicans think the election was rigged but in some ways the fact that it's only half might suggest Trump's sore-loserism has a limited audience. https://t.co/IsVz4l88jp — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I don't have strong priors on what's going to happen in the Georgia runoffs but I do think some of people's macro conclusions about what the political environment looks like should probably wait until those are finished. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @baseballot: New from me and @elena___mejia: After a strong 2020, Republicans will control redistricting of 188 House seats, vs. 47-73 f… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Never got worse than an A- at U of Chicago on a paper where I name-dropped Foucault. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @profshanecrotty: 2/ That led us to speculate, "As a result of the immune response heterogeneity...it may be expected that at least a fr… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @profshanecrotty: 1/ This is a really good point @NateSilver538 , and I should reiterate it. We saw a lot of variation from person to pe… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@apoorva_nyc I know @florian_krammer is very clued in on this topic so that was my tip-off! Great job on the story, as always. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So that gives Democrats some leverage. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Who wins that? IDK, but in theory Murkowski could get squeezed out if say the Democrat gets 30% of the vote, the Libertarian gets 5% and the MAGA R gets 35%, leaving her with 30%. Murkowski doesn't want there to be a strong Democratic nominee, in other words. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There are actually some pretty interesting incentives here. If you had to guess, you'd think a Top 4 general election in Alaska would consist of Murkowski, a Democrat, a MAGA/Tea Party Republican, and a Libertarian. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So basically, Murkowski can live without fear of a Republican primary challenge. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This section from their preprint is important. Immune responses vary, so for some small but unknown % of people reinfections will be possible on short time scales. But protection looks to be quite robust at 5-6 months out in ~90% of cases. https://t.co/uh3fQNNGck https://t.co/dfy1bnMCjS — PolitiTweet.org