Nate Silver

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @onyxfish: ICYMI yesterday, this is a great thread on the design work @wiederkehra has been leading for our 2020 presidential forecast.… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The Trump winning scenarios probably involve some combination of coronavirus improving + some legit Biden scandal or other new development that helps him + some rehashes of 2016 (Electoral College help, polls being a bit off). Not crazy! Could happen! But not easy. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

^^ Nor is it clear that the new cohort of cases is really priced into Trump's polling numbers yet. There actually haven't been that many polls over the past couple of weeks and these things can take a while to sink in. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Also, the new cohort of rising cases in ~60% of the country is critical. People *may* have been able to buy into a recovery narrative by November if there had been two seasons' of improvement by then. But now we're also going to have a lost summer and school is dicey for fall. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

I mean, if Trump tomorrow suddenly woke up with [Obama/Romney/insert politician here]'s temperament, said "we screwed up and I'll make this right", actually followed through and did it—then maybe the public *might* give him *some* credit. But, sorry, that ain't going to happen. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Yeah, you can certainly conjure up scenarios where the COVID situation is looking *better* by mid-Fall. But it's hard to imagine scenarios where things feel roughly normal again by then; still likely to be reminders everywhere of a very difficult 8 months for the country. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

To the extent things slow down it might just be because enough people have had it that it eventually lowers R. His model estimates that by Labor Day, almost 20% of Arizonans will have had COVID, which is not far from some of the worst-affected areas (NYC, Sweden, Northern Italy). — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

And let's not forget that in March/April, the numbers came down because of lockdowns. Although states are reimposing some restrictions and people are being more careful, those aren't really happening now. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The @youyanggu numbers now say that about as many Americans are infected as in the March/April peak. Yes there is more testing now, but he's trying to estimate the *true* number of infections and they've now caught up (and are still rising). https://t.co/Qxu8rSPoV1 https://t.co/NFIUjzDTte — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

RT @Anna_Rothschild: I interviewed Dr. Fauci for @FiveThirtyEight's PODCAST-19. He sat in front of a @NIAID sign. I sat in front of a paint… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

So, yeah, Occam's Razor is that deaths are on the upswing. Even though the death *rate* will possibly be lower than it was for the spring cohort of cases, we're just getting so many more *cases* now that it will probably overcome any gains from a lower IFR. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

That's now 3 days in a row with death tolls elevated over the same day a week ago. And while lags from the holiday weekend (which featured low death tolls) may account for *some* of that, we've now more than made up for the low weekend numbers with high ones this week. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

US daily numbers via @COVID19Tracking Newly reported deaths Today: 867 Yesterday: 897 One week ago (7/2): 670 Newly reported cases T: 59K Y: 62K 7/2: 54K Newly reported tests T: 738K* Y: 627K 7/2: 662K Positive test rate T: 8.0% Y: 9.9% 7/2: 8.1% * record — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The data we're using for this comes from this paper here, FWIW. https://t.co/PNL98ryVAI — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Anyway, we're going to incorporate some of this in the model this year. While the effect of any one change in voting laws is usually fairly small, a party making a concerted effort to change laws could plausibly swing the partisan gravity of a state by 2-3 points, we find. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It's also likely that this makes some contribution to polarization. Republicans gain in a state, they pass laws to restrict voting, and that tends to facilitate further Republican gains. Or Democrats gain ground and make voting easier, as they recently have in states like CO/VA. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Here's the whole thing! https://t.co/TbyrTYHVG6 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@MileHighBrendan https://t.co/KXKpl9vSTx — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

It is likely a rather small effect in practice, but in theory, if red states are doing a bunch of things to restrict voting and blue states are doing a bunch of things to expand voting, that could increase the popular vote vs. Electoral College gap. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@SeanMcElwee I'm more talking about the media's ability to control the media. Trump taxes would probably get a lot of coverage; it's the sort of story that journalists see as part of their mission, etc. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@joshtpm It is decently encouraging given increased subway ridership, outdoor dining (indoors upstate too!), protests, etc. But it is also good that NY is taking things slow, because lots of other states had encouraging data initially and then it all went to hell. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

We've got a Fauci interview coming for you! Including some very 538-y questions about partisanship, etc. Full interview will be published on PODCAST-19 later today. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

The other thing to think about too is that although viral tests aren't generally thought to give a lot of false positives, when overall positivity rates are very low (<=1%), false positives are potentially a bigger issue, which can make it harder to interpret daily fluctuations. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

While there can be some undulations from day to day, overall the numbers in New York have been very stable. NYC has averaged 307 cases per day this week, vs. 315/day in the week before that. Suburbs: 139/day this week vs. 137 last week Upstate: 206 this week vs. 197 last week. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Yeah, subtle but important. The error is not in "re-opening too soon" per se, but rather, in *not using the time under lockdown to accomplish very much*. These states didn't develop a sustainable medium-term (post-lockdown, pre-vaccine) plan. Federal government zero help either. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Hot take. Not sure I 100% believe this one, but worthy of tweeting. Congress going through Trump's tax records and the media spending a ton of time on that story pre-election might be better for Trump than the alternatives, which is focus on COVID, the economy and the protests. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

@SethPartnow Yeah I do wonder what would have happened if McCain had picked Joe Lieberman or someone instead. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

Be careful with Alaska polls, a state where polling is hard and there's a long history of polls teasing at better results for Democrats than they actually wind up with. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

On the flip side, I don't care that much about whether NY or NJ or MA has an R of 0.9 or 1.0 or 1.1 or whatever since the volume of cases there is now very low. (Higher than that would be a concern if sustained, but R can bounce around a lot when you have a low volume of cases.) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Silver @NateSilver538

e.g. There's some evidence R has declined to 1.1-1.2 in some badly-affected states (AZ/TX/FL) from 1.3-1.4. So cases are increasing, but not quite as rapidly. THAT's STILL REALLY BAD since they're increasing from a high base. A plateau (R=1) from a high base would also be bad. — PolitiTweet.org