Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan a third force adding to the urgency of the debate, of course, is the anti-democratic tendency in the GOP right now, which turns electoral defeat into a threat to democracy for structural bias to undo the messaging debate, it would have to fix these factors. i don't think it would — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan i think the democratic messaging debate is driven by two things: 1) they need a governing majority to enact an ambitious agenda, so they're dissatisfied with marginal wins; 2) they assume the GOP can only get near power due to Dem message failures, since GOP crazy etc — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan that's not the argument? the argument is that the democratic messaging debate is simply bc of structural bias. minority rule isn't relevant here bc it violates democratic principles, but because it implies the dem message would be fine absent structural bias — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan in this analogy, your tweet is the equivalent of saying 'we wouldn't be debating about why people from country X aren't being hired if it weren't for discrimination,' which does require an analysis of the counterfactual — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan are you sure that trump wouldn't have won in '20, perhaps with 60 senate seats with a favorable midterm, if clinton had narrowly won in '16? what kind of majority do you think the GOP would have had in '08 if gore had won 00/04 heading into the financial crisis? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan and i think a lot of the contingencies where democrats win an extra term could easily heighten the risk of populist authoritarianism — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan and that's entirely leaving aside the overwhelming likelihood that the democrats would not have won 7/8 popular votes if elections were decided by popular votes, since democrats would have been in power and suffered various party-in-power penalties — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan seems to me it might shoulder even more of the blame, since the democrats would probably be farther to the left and still wouldn't have anything like the kind of governing majority they think they ought to have given their opposition/think they need given ambitious goals — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@BrendanNyhan in all seriousness, i think there definitely would still be one — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

An unbalanced subsample of 165 Hispanic voters isn't really what we want to hang our hats on here, but it's hardly alone in suggesting Biden's approval ratings are pretty mediocre among Hispanic voters https://t.co/zVQrLB90FK — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @SteveKornacki: GA GOP Gov primary poll (Fox5/InsiderAdvantage) Brian Kemp 41% David Perdue 22% Vernon Jones 11% Kandiss Taylor 4% Res… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @jon_m_rob: The original HR1 had no measures on election subversion because it was written in 2018. The Freedom to Vote Act has some but… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@stgoldst @jbarro right, and i think that's especially true if it's less virulent, which at least seems possible at this point. so there's economic/market upside that we haven't seen before from a new variant — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@stgoldst @jbarro i don't think the market cares about that, unless it's bad enough to cause new shutdowns — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@jbarro obviously it's far too soon to say any of it for sure, but there's non-definitive evidence to support all of that at this point — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@jbarro idk if this is priced in, but isn't there potential medium-term economic upside with omicron if it proves less severe than delta, contagious enough to overtake delta (but not enough to cause lockdowns) and increases immunity? isn't this the spanish flu path to normalcy? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@xenocryptsite this particular method, as i'm understanding it, seems confounded by turnout by method? the dropoff in "democratic precincts" would seem to reflect a decline in turnout in the absentee precincts, which is just democratic vote shifting into other (less dem) precincts — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @maggieNYT: Fearing a Repeat of Jan. 6, Congress Eyes Changes to Electoral Count Law - The New York Times https://t.co/I5QIidCSPg — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @jmartNYT: Remember those focus groups of Va voters @BrianStryker did before Thanksgiving? I talked to him about what he heard, and di… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini totally, just saying that we don't really know -- in either '16 or '20 -- how much the 'late tightening' was caused by events or represented the continuation of trends already clearly at work — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini though like the comey letter, the trendline was already heading his way before the ACB confirmation — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

The case that COVID cost Trump the election is... difficult to prove, especially since it coincided with that debate performance. But it's not entirely implausible. His poll numbers crashed thereafter and they never recovered to his pre-COVID standing — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

My fun hypothetical: if Trump's coronavirus diagnosis cost him the election, then RBG's death was responsible for Trump's defeat (since the Barrett party was presumably the spreader event) https://t.co/XO5cpyWK2I — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini @jon_m_rob one factor that could exacerbate that churn issue: for the first three months of the year, many had to wait until 65 in order to get vaccinated. again depending on data collection, it could lead to as many as 1 million would-have-been 64 year olds getting vaccinated at 65 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini @jon_m_rob on top of that, there are some weird churn issues here. 3 million people die a year or whatever while 3 million enter the 65+ cohort. you like to think this is handled well, but if not it's easy to wind up with more recorded as vaccinated 65+ than the population at any time — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini @jon_m_rob this particular question with seniors is a new one to me, so i have no idea. but without having looked further, my instinct is that the data quality on the vaccine side seems likely to be pretty sketch — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini @jon_m_rob some of those issues got resolved by the '20 census in ways i expected, or at least got nudged closer to my expectations. (to take one ex, the ACS has often been underestimating pop decline in urban black areas, exaggerating (a still real) decline in black turnout) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini @jon_m_rob on a broad note, i'll just say that i've been intrigued by these sort of census issues for a long time, though mainly ACS-related questions since, well, that's the recent data in nine years out of ten — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

@PatrickRuffini @jon_m_rob are specifically you talking about seniors, re: file v census? — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @JeffPassan: Reigning AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and the Seattle Mariners are finalizing a five-year, $115 million contract with an o… — PolitiTweet.org