Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I guess the silver lining for Trump is that Pennsylvania has been polled quite a bit lately and there are certainly other polls to suggest that Biden's advantage isn't as large as 9 points. But still... https://t.co/wKbW02AGO5 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Second high-quality Pennsylvania poll tonight to have Biden +9 among likely voters, which is obviously not good news for Trump. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Elitist NYT columnists cherry-picking random (and in this case, anonymous) voters to vocalize their own political preferences is exactly the reason it's important to look at public opinion polls that survey a random sample of the population. https://t.co/LswFyNk6Jp — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The late-morning-to-mid-afternoon window is generally underutilized. People used to go crazy waiting for the Gallup tracker to update at 1pm or whatever it was. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Turnaround times can be slower outside of those windows. But please do let us know if you have a poll publishing outside of those periods and we can often accommodate. And we steadfastly respect embargoes. You can reach us at POLLS at FIVETHIRTYEIGHT dot COM. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Hey folks: As Election Day approaches, the seemingly simple task of finding and entering in the large number of polls actually gets to be a LOT of rather hard work. In general, the 538 polling desk is actively staffed between 8am and 7pm on weekdays and 8am and 11am on Sundays. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@mattyglesias @JonWalkerDC 100%. And public health communicators are put in a rough spot by that. But given that we still are left to rely fairly heavily on limiting in-person social interaction, that's a big ask of people when we're 6 months into this thing and probably talking about another 6-9 months. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

In the background, the model gets a bit more confident in Biden with every day that passes, though we're also seeing a small "convention bounce adjustment" wear off as more recent polls replace post-RNC polls. Has lead to a very steady forecast overall. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

There's really quite a high density of polls both nationally and in the major swing states (which is a good thing!) so no one poll is really moving our forecast all that much. It has been very steady at Biden ~77% in recent days (n.b. forecast assumes a free and fair election). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Biden's lead has crept up to 5.2 points in Pennsylvania, though with a split between the live caller polls, which tend to show leads in the mid/high single digits, and online/IVR polls, which show a tighter race. ABC/Post poll also coming here soon. https://t.co/wKbW02AGO5 https://t.co/wj95p6kqMz — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Small-ish thing, but note that Biden could lose Nevada if he's doing well with white voters in the North and wins back MI/PA/WI. Maps like these are not too crazy. https://t.co/xchuztg8OX — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

If PA starts polling more like MI/WI, all of the sudden the Electoral College/popular vote gap mostly disappears. If it starts polling more like AZ/FL, the gap is huge. Lately it's been somewhere in between. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

This is made slightly more complicated by the small states (NV, NH, ME-2, NE-2) but leaving those aside for now, and focusing on the larger states, here are our current polling averages: MI: Biden +6.9 WI: Biden +6.8 PA: Biden +4.9 AZ: Biden +3.6 FL: Biden +1.7 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

These are going to be pretty important polls. Pennsylvania is the tipping point state in around 1/3 of our simulations right now. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's taken me a long time to figure out something about this platform that I guess was obvious to everyone else, which is that if someone is (a) trollish/obnoxious and (b) would disproportionally benefit from getting attention from you, don't give it to them. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Monmouth, a good pollster, has generally shown better numbers for Trump than other live-caller polls. He trails Biden by 5 among likely voters in their new national poll. https://t.co/8Vev5p7csq — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@WesPegden Arguably, people are being narrowly rational also, i.e. there are lots of things that might be "worth" doing if the positivity rate is 1% in your area that wouldn't be worth doing at 10%. But of course, these things can create a negative externality. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@WesPegden Yeah, you can get people to be pretty careful if cases are high and/or rising. But it's hard if they're low and/or declining. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Starting from the premise that "yeah, this sucks, and we're all making sacrifices, but we're not expecting you to isolate completely, and here are some ways to socialize that are a lot safer (also we REALLY need to improve on testing/tracing)" might be better. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Lots of coronavirus coverage is framed around "why do we keep making the same mistakes?" It's complicated, but part of the answer may be there are unrealistic expectations for how much in-person social interaction people will be willing to give up for extended periods of time. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@IChotiner @Redistrict Yeah, there are some scenarios where it comes up. If Biden has trouble in the Sunbelt (loses FL/AZ/NV) and New England (loses ME-2/NH) he actually needs Ohio or something else to get to 270. It's also a backup plan if something weird happens in PA. https://t.co/PUOA6FZK9y — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

First nonpartisan poll of this district, which could be Biden's 269th or 270th Electoral College vote in certain scenarios. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Sorry if this point is a little obvious, but it's pretty hard for Trump to sustain an argument that the NYT taxes story is "fake news" when he won't release his taxes himself. Obviously the base will buy it but I'm not sure that anybody else does. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

* That is the rub, of course. Biden's lead in the tipping-point states is more like 4-5 points. And you can see some 4-5 point swings in the table here (1980, 1988, 1992). If such a swing favors Trump, he could win. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So: Uncertainty is no longer quite so high. Biden has the largest lead at this point of any candidate since 1996. And the candidate who led at this stage won the popular vote every time since 1976, though they lost the Electoral College twice.* — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To be fair, this ^^^ is an oversimplification. Decided voters can sometimes change their minds. Or polls can be wrong and estimate turnout incorrectly. But empirically, it's not super easy to come back when your opponent is already at ~50%. Very different than 2016, BTW. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

And keep in mind Biden is already very close to or above 50% in many potential tipping-point states, meaning that Trump needs to win nearly all of the undecideds. Minnesota 50.8 Wisconsin 50.7 Michigan 49.9 Pennsylvania 49.7 Nevada 48.8 Arizona 48.5 Ohio 47.9 North Carolina 47.5 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Small data point, but The Daily aired some fairly long interviews with undecided voters the other day, and more of them than you might think touched upon the personal qualities of the candidates. Worth a listen. https://t.co/DvH9xw0nMA — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

No particular instinct for how much the Trump tax news will resonate with rank-and-file voters. May depend on how much the Biden campaign chooses to emphasize it. There is a damaging headline for Trump (that he paid only $750) which is sometimes lacking in these sorts of stories. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@SeanTrende @Graniteprof He's net -5 on approval but net -9 on personal favorability in that poll. I think I've seen claims that favorability actually trends to predict the horse race better. — PolitiTweet.org