Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Although everyone's waiting for that last twist of fate as with the Comey letter in 2016, more often the final two weeks of a campaign can be anticlimactic, with it being too late to shift tactics or change that many minds. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @ABCPolitics: .@NateSilver538: “Republicans should be worried Democrats are locking a lot of votes in, but I wouldn’t say they should pa… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

As much as the political world might be on the lookout for an "October surprise", having a COVID spike right before Election Day might be more important than any such surprise. Trump's approval ratings on COVID are much worse than his numbers overall. https://t.co/mnZkHDvJSs https://t.co/NcP0QMddWa — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Another day over 60,000 cases. We are doing more tests than before (good) but those are not enough to explain the increase on their own as positivity rates are up, as are hospitalizations. And there's every reason to think this gets worse, at least in the short run. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

When comparing state polling averages, it's worth keeping in mind that there's been a real streak of quantity over quality in state polls recently. Here's how many live-caller w/cell polls there are in the current RCP averages: AZ: 2 of 6 FL: 1/9 MI: 2/7 NC: 3/6 PA: 1/7 WI: 4/7 https://t.co/JRAbf8WeJU — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @NumbersMuncher: When you think of all of the potential "October surprises" that could still impact the election, the rise in COVID case… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @NumbersMuncher: We're 17 days until the election, and COVID cases are surging across the country. We've had over 8 million cases and y… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @Taniel: This: over past decade, there’ve been very set expectations of how much Dem gains in AZ & CA once late-mail is counted, & so a… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

In certain states, some of these distinctions may collapse (e.g. if early in-person votes are counted simultaneously with Election Day in-person votes) but overall there are a lot of moving parts and which tranches are counted at which time will differ from state to state. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

1. Early-arriving mail votes (VERY D) 2. Late-arriving mail votes (probably somewhat D, but hard to say) 3. Early in-person votes (somewhat D) 4. In-person Election Day votes (VERY R) 5. Provisional ballots (traditionally D but harder to say this year) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Anyway, when it comes to vote counting and the timing of when states are called or what the results look like on a given point on Nov. 3, 4, etc. people are actually oversimplifying when they talk about mail votes (D) vs. in-person votes (R). There are really 5 relevant tranches: — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also keep in that in the world in which the race is close enough for this to matter is probably a world in which Trump has made a fairly big comeback to close the race to say Biden +5. If there's late movement toward Trump, late-received mail ballots might not be so blue at all. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This means there might not be as much of a blue shift in states with late-counted mail ballots, especially ballots that arrive after Election Day in states that allow that, as people might assume. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If (as this data shows) Dems are returning their ballots sooner, then mail ballots cast closer to Election Day—which in many states, will also be counted later—may not be as D as mail ballots overall. They could even wind up being R-leaning, conceivably. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So far, returned mail ballots are D +31 (not a surprise given what polls show) whereas the set of mail ballots that have been requested but not yet returned are "only" D +17. Why does this matter? https://t.co/Ii5lBCeY9j https://t.co/LpNFjouC9P — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's probably safe at this point to conclude that Trump didn't get any bounce from leaving the hospital. With more recent developments (the town halls and the Hunter Biden story/disinfo) it's a bit too early to say although tracking polls don't point toward any Trump gains. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Still no real sign that the race is tightening. https://t.co/cy51vc5isJ https://t.co/jbutCzcz1o — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To be sure, all three of those races are *competitive*. But I don't necessarily buy that very much has changed there. They're polling basically the same as they have since the summer. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

And in general, in Senate races, you should be skeptical of sharp shifts in the polls and take a fairly long-term average. One or two polls showing, say, SC or AK or MI tied don't necessary mean that future polls will say that if the incumbent has been ahead in the past. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

People talk about how stable polls of the presidential race are but... do you know what's *really* stable? Polls of how people feel about Congress. https://t.co/7mfucyRAFG https://t.co/39nYTjH3Ud — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So you get a big cluster of outcomes at around Biden 413 electoral votes, which is where he wins all the toss-ups / lean R states (including Texas) but little if anything beyond that, although adding AK to that map (so 416 EV) also comes up decently often. https://t.co/HKvHyV4ANB — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I'd also note that there's a pretty big gap in the snake chart here between Texas, where our forecast is Trump +3 (so not quite a tossup, but close) and then a group of states (Alaska, SC, MO, KS, MT) where we're in the range of Trump +7 to Trump +10. https://t.co/sq1hvIAJyE — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Our forecast has Trump winning Alaska by 7 points, but it also thinks Alaska is a hard state to forecast so it gives Biden a 22 percent chance of winning it, which would make him the first Democrat since LBJ to do so. https://t.co/oweLAoPeac https://t.co/qUoiO4bkcJ — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @perrybaconjr: Democrats adding justices to the Court is unpopular right now. It might remain so. But it's worth recalling what happened… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I don't get why the IBD/TIPP poll says it should get "credited with predicting President Trump's 2016 victory" when… https://t.co/ouf0hX2qMC — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

e.g. you could have planned 3-week lockdown periods from Nov. 30-Dec. 20, Jan. 11-Jan. 31 and Feb. 22-March 14. In between those periods, it's not "anything goes", but it's more like the current regime of restrictions in blue states and Western Europe. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The original Imperial College paper recommended on/off periods of lockdowns with a trigger based on the number of hospital beds available, but part of me wonders whether you couldn't do that in a planned way instead to get through the winter in cold cities. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Should you be sleeping on the Alaska Senate race? Perhaps not. We have Democrat Al Gross with around a 25% chance of winning, pending nonpartisan polling from NYT/Siena tomorrow. https://t.co/Ll9XvHJCFY — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Two perhaps underweighted theories for why Biden has gained in polls: 1. Maybe it's the advertising: https://t.co/LAmHtzZyDP 2. Maybe, with early voting, some people who would have failed a likely voter screen have already voted and thus are included. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's just a tiny bit of Northeast media bias in thinking of the mid-to-late fall as months when you stop doing stuff outdoors, when in some hot states they're the months when you'd start doing stuff outdoors again. — PolitiTweet.org