Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Just some random thoughts here: 1. Both these polls showed good results for Biden before, so that's a silver lining for Trump. 2. At the same time, his recent improvements in our national poll average has relied on a lot of low-quality polls. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So we've gotten two live-caller national polls fully post-debate and they're Biden +12 (CNN) and Biden +11 (CNBC/Hart/POS). https://t.co/P66ItEJsB2 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I know people are like "well, if Biden wins and Trump's in a lame-duck period, the political climate for this runoff could totally change", which yeah maybe but also the Trump lame-duck period could be totally crazy where he's pardoning himself, refusing to concede, etc. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If the Biden campaign had anything *really* good left in the playbook, it would have used it already (given that half the country has already voted) but having a few things that can kill a third of a day's worth of a news cycle at a time is still useful I suppose. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@jtlevy I mean, it's still something of a tightrope: 1) Biden's a reasonably heavy favorite in PA. 2) Some of the time that he loses PA, there's a catastrophic polling error and he loses most other swing states too. 3) Of the times he loses PA but wins AZ, he usually wins NE-2. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Given Biden's strong polling in Iowa lately I suspect that our model is lowballing him in NE-2, in fact. Getting another nonpartisan poll there before the election would be one of the more helpful things right now. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Losing PA but winning AZ (and winning back MI/WI) would get Biden to 269 electoral votes, e.g. an Electoral College tie, so he'd also have to win either NE-2, ME-2 or Iowa. He's become a pretty clear favorite in NE-2 while the other two are tossups. https://t.co/6n48auyWTs — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Arizona's oscillated back and forth between being Biden's clearly best Plan B (if he loses PA) and part of a larger group with states like FL and NC. Right now, there's a bit more separation. Biden is +3.5 in AZ, vs +2.1 in NC and +1.4 in both GA and FL. https://t.co/AniJJXutqh https://t.co/kIPK6kVP4G — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Monmouth has been quite bearish on Democrats in Georgia all year, so this is a real warning sign for Republicans that Biden is tied/ahead there. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

EmBiId FoR HaRdEn — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@ddale8 Plenty of good polling. Also plenty of crap polling. The cheaper polling sometimes comes out sooner, so we got a lot of it after the debate, but we'll have plenty of good polling by the end of the week. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Speculating here, but it seems like one reason for resistance to new lockdowns now is because of the indefinite duration of the spring lockdowns, and states/countries could build credibility by setting clearer deadlines & criteria for when new lockdowns end (and abiding by them). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@yeselson A much longer list. Alaska. Montana. South Carolina. Basically anything that's not in a POTUS swing state. Plus the final Selzer poll in Iowa. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's not that the other states are unimportant. I just feel like we have a pretty good idea of where the final averages will end up in, say, North Carolina (Biden +1 or +2), whereas I can imagine a wider spread in these other states. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

States where I'm pretty interested in seeing more polling, ranked 1. Pennsylvania 2. Georgia 3. Florida 4. Arizona 5. Nevada — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If there's some crazy news (Comey letter / someone-gets-COVID magnitude) in the last 48/72 hours that seems to be producing late movement in the polls we may revisit this, but that's the plan for now. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So we'd strongly encourage pollsters not to wait until election morning to release any last-minute data. Get it to us by midnight if you want it included in the final 538 averages. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

A heads up for pollsters/everyone else: Our current plan is to freeze our presidential and congressional forecasts shortly after midnight on Nov. 3. Sometimes we've waited until 9/10 am but we're inclined to do midnight this year. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Despite that, surface readings of early/mail voting data would mostly seem to be good for Democrats. Maybe NV is something of an exception, and you could argue about FL. But that makes sense too. NV/FL have been Biden's worst swing states (as compared to 2016) in the polls. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Despite that, surface readings of early/mail voting data would mostly seem to be good for Democrats. Maybe NV is something of an exception, and you could argue about FL. But that makes sense too. NV/FL have maybe Biden's worst swing states (as compared to 2016) in the polls. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Early voting data can maaaayyybee give you some hints at *turnout*, but i) it's by party registration, not party ID ii) there's usually not a great way to tell how much the early vote is cannibalizing the late vote iii) this is a persuasion election not a turnout one — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

More broadly: polls suggest Biden's gains relative to Clinton are mostly about persuasion, i.e. flipping some Obama-Trump voters and Johnson/3rd party voters that she didn't get. They don't tend to suggest a more D electorate than in 2016 by party ID (maybe a bit less, in fact). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @micahcohen: 🚨🚨🚨 OMG BIDEN +17 IN WISCONSIN!?!?!?!? 🚨🚨🚨 This is how polling works. You conduct the poll, make sure your methods are sou… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

A 5-point swing toward Biden would put him at +4. Instead, polls have him at +2, meaning that they expect the D/R/I breakdown to be a bit worse for Democrats than 2016. Still, Biden (narrowly) leads based on greater support from indies and crossover R's than Clinton got. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Similarly, in FL, polls have Biden winning indies by 6 points after Clinton lost them by 4 in '16. They also show Biden getting 9% of the R vote while Trump gets 7% of Ds. That equals a ~5-point swing to Biden vs. 2016 holding the partisan composition of the electorate constant. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Remember, the question is not merely "can you learn anything from early voting data?" but rather "can you learn anything that you *can't* glean from polls?". Usually, the story from the polls checks out if you look at the data more carefully. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So if you had the same partisan turnout split as in 2016 in Nevada but with this year's partisan breakdown of the vote, Biden would win by ~8 points not ~2 like Clinton. Probably though the split will be a bit worse for Democrats which is why polls have him up ~6 instead. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

In many state/national polls, Biden also gets a slightly higher share of Republicans than Trump does of Democrats. In Nevada polls, for instance, Trump gets 6% of Democrats but Biden gets 9% of Republicans. That's amounts to about a 2 point swing to Biden vs. 2016. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

For example, Biden lost independents by 13 points in Nevada in 2016, per the exit poll there. This year, he leads them by 3 points, in an average of the last 6 polls of the state. That amounts to a net 6 point swing to Biden. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I'm not sure that some of these early-voting comparisons to 2016 make a ton of sense given that much of Biden's edge is thought to come from independents breaking his way, and early voting statistics won't capture that. — PolitiTweet.org