Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Hey sometimes I'm pretty good at guessing! And this is indeed very good news, from a lot of experts that I've come to trust over the course of the pandemic. https://t.co/U38g1NieHc — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Useful dashboard of which regions are having the most problems in New York State. Western NY has done very well throughout the pandemic but is up to 5% positivity now. https://t.co/ajrjsiKyMv https://t.co/dZaSitRpmm — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Even the Ohio batch should be pretty blue since what's left is late-arriving mail ballots, mostly from fairly blue counties. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I'm still tracking Biden's margin eventually getting up to 4.4 or 4.5 points. Apart from NY, there's not a *ton* left out there, but most of what's left should be pretty blue. Probably low-mid 6 figures worth of ballots to count in CA, IL, MA, MD, NJ, OH. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is higher than earlier estimates of ~1.5 million and many of these votes are uncounted and they're going to be very blue, so should boost Biden's popular vote margin a bit. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @thehowie: @NateSilver538 I may be too much of an optimist. But several simultaneously available vaccines that were pre-purchased makes… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

One thing that's clearly been a problem, too, is polling in red states. In both 2018 and 2020, a lot of red-state Senate races that were projected to be close (e.g. TN, SC) just weren't. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This excludes a few races (GA, NH) where the Senate polling was pretty good, but even so, Congressional polls are going to miss more than those for the presidency, maybe around 5-6 points low on the GOP vs. 3-4 for POTUS. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@davidshor I know you, specifically, have done a lot of work on response rates, have looked at microdata, etc., and may have had reason to think polls would underrate Trump. I don't think that case was strong based on publicly-available info, though. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@davidshor I'd find that more compelling if prediction markets hadn't been completely off their rocker in a pro-MAGA direction from election night onward. These aren't people who had deeply-researched, well-considered theories about polling bias. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

For posterity's sake, I suppose the caveat to the above is that I can imagine cases being on the decline again by March/April or whenever the vaccine becomes widely available, which could create a messaging challenge. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I would be surprised if, at any point before say next September, there's an excess of vaccine because we can't find enough people willing to take it. (Maybe some oversupply at the local level, but I doubt nationally.) The challenge will be getting it in people's hands. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I suspect this increase in willingness to take vaccines is due to the increased spread of COVID—people looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. There will probably be a further increase as a result of i) the end of the election ii) positive vaccine trial results. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias Yeah, there's definitely like some abstinence vs. safe sex parallels. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias I think it's very difficult. I guess my big meta-critique is that IMO the noneconomic costs of curtailing in-person social activity have been underrated. But it's becoming an easier problem with vaccines on the way (i.e. hunker down now and we'll "get it all back" soon enough). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias I think people have some poor heuristics, e.g. not adjusting enough for indoor vs. outdoor activity or for the incidence in their area at any given moment, but basically this is correct. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@poniewozik There is undoubtedly a lot of selection bias in who shares their how-I-got-corona stories. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Like maybe the vaccine is scaling Mt. Everest, and the distribution is getting down Mt. Everest, which is easier than scaling Mt. Everest but still pretty fricking arduous. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This seems like an off-kilter analogy to me given the unprecedented, mountainous accomplishment it has been to develop multiple apparently highly effective vaccines in 9 months. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The reason for this is that if you count in the other direction, i.e. go from Trump's best state to Trump's worst state, then WI only gets Trump to 269 so he'd need PA for 270. So I guess you could say WI is Biden's tipping-point state but PA is Trump's. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Actually it looks like PA will get Biden his 269th electoral vote (good enough for an Electoral College tie) and Wisconsin his 270th. When this happens, we consider there to be two tipping point states. So likely PA/WI get joint credit this year. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@DanRosenheck @jipkin Also the fact that prediction market prices on Trump *right now* are *literally insane* might suggest that markets have no special sauce but just a pro-MAGA bias this cycle for whatever reason. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@apoorva_nyc @florian_krammer More evidence of fairly long lasting antibody and/or T-cell immunity? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's this dumb argument circulating that if you'd known in advance what would happen—i.e. Trump beating his polls—you shouldn't have Biden e.g. a 90% chance of winning. Actually, if you'd known in advance what would happen, you should have given Biden a 100% chance of winning! — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Collins winning re-election by 8 points while backing Trump only 45% of the time while Gardner lost re-election by 9 points while backing Trump 83% of the time would suggest that crossing partisan lines is still fairly popular with voters. https://t.co/hdJRgWVME7 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm I mean, it's only 60% non-Hispanic white, is very young, is decently college-educated. Would actually be an interesting place for D voter mobilization efforts. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It also looks like Alaska voters will probably approve an initiative implementing ranked choice voting + a nonpartisan primary where the top 4 candidates advance. Could give Murkowski more leeway to behave as a de facto independent. https://t.co/vfntfRXrzf — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Not surprising given the source but this tweet didn't age well. Trump's still gonna win Alaska but his margin is now down to 10 points as more votes have been counted. Biden has the highest share for a Democrat there since LBJ in 1964. https://t.co/WQvU7iNRur https://t.co/v84szXiNtz — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @ashishkjha: 1. Would have pushed for more targeted restrictions: encourage outdoor activity, reduce indoor stuff 2. Get more money to… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Question for public health people (and everyone). Suppose you'd known then what we'd know now about COVID and the governmental response to it. (Some stylized facts, which you're welcome to disagree with, suggested below.) What strategies would you have recommended back in March? https://t.co/AvnAjVNhHj — PolitiTweet.org