内特·银谈民调走势与直觉判断：2026年中期选举前瞻

And so, I think the question is, can we trust these polls?

What can we really say about where the election stands just a week before the vote? To talk about all this, I want to have Nate Silver on the show. Nate, of course, is, you know, internationally famous elections nerd.

These days he edits a silver bulletin on Substack which puts out a ton of great analysis, polling, and election forecasts. He co the podcast still counting. Trump's approval rating is now lower than it was uh after January 6th when he was

Um and like part of what people understandably are having trouble believing in the polls. It kind of looks like a different regime, right? Where Kansas is competitive, Texas is competitive, potentially gains for Democrats deep into Republican territory. But maybe we're on the verge of something different between generational turnover, between Trump being threequarters of the way through his two constitutionally provided for terms and um and with AI looming too. It's not quite clear to me how big an issue AI is in this election. I think maybe more than people assume, but um but it could be the biggest issue of 2028. I think I think you might expect it to be along with the economy the biggest issues of 2028.

Why? What happened?

Um so you know look in the average midterm the environment shifts by seven and a half points against the president's party versus the previous presidential year. Um this year it looks more like 11 points. But why is 11 points important? Well um there are all these states like you said that Trump won by 10 11 12 13 points right? Ohio I think he won by 11 points. Um, so if you have an 11-point swing and it's fairly uniform, all of a sudden Ohio becomes a tossup.

Um, what I think wasn't so clear is that Democrats have actually nominated in most important races pretty good candidates and or lucky enough to face weaker Republican candidates, right? Um, I'm not sure if James Talico is everybody's cup of tea, but like um, you know, he is able to take advantage of Ken Paxton's many sins so forth, right? Um, in North Carolina, Roy Cooper was a strong recruit from Schumer and Company. Um, you know, Democrats have the strategy now of trying to nominate independents and kind of name only in states like Nebraska. I think both the candidates, Republican and the Democrat, are strong in Iowa, for example.

Um, but, you know, I would say that probably the candidate intangibles. um you know they might move things by five points at most but you kind of do the math and you're like okay well Texas is a Trump plus 13 state the parson climate moves 11 points toward Democrats so now it's R plus two and then is Ken Paxton below average enough to turn R plus2 into D plus2 well that's the math right and that's kind of that's a logical enough story

Schumer and his team, [snorts] the Democratic Senatoral Campaign Committee. It's under Christian Gillibrand right now. They looked pretty bad a couple months ago and they looked pretty bad primarily because a focus was on the fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee and instead it was going to be Graham Planner. Graham Platner imploded.

look, yeah, you have these big fights in Maine and Michigan. I I would share Democrats concern about Maine a little bit. I mean, that's based on nothing but just the fact that Susan Collins beat her polls by like literally like nine points in the last election. There's a whole argument about how persistent polling error is. We tend to assume that it's not, but um that's one race where the polls have gotten maybe closer by a point or two. There hasn't been a lot of polling in Maine. Um, Michigan. Look, I'm one of those people who says that other things held equal that a moderate can't able do better than a progressive, at least in a purple state like like Michigan, right? Um, and if you compare the governor's race there where Jocelyn Benson is ahead by eight points, Eliad's ahead by three or three and a half or something, right? Again, that, you know, there is a four or four and a half point candidate quality gap. that is again within that range of what we think candidates how much they can matter in an environment like this one right um but um if you have enough wind at your back then you can overcome some of those problems and by the way in in other ways Elsa is a is a good candidate right he's very Michigan in certain ways right he in kind of a zoranesque way um doesn't present I mean he kind of is a bro right it's an interesting contrast to like Franchesco Hong or somebody and there are gendered parts of that comparison too potentially. Um he's also raised a lot of money and money is money is helpful. Um so but yeah I mean Michigan and Maine if Democrats were to lose one of them they'd still have a chance. If they were to lose both then probably game over for a Democratic Senate flip.

Um, if you believe in kind of a last in first out argument, like what if we are reverting somewhat out of the Trump era? Actually, in 2024, um, for the first time in a while, you had very mild depolarization. Some of the worst states that Democrats had relative to 2020 were like New York and and California. Um, you know, younger voters of color, for example, and younger men in general kind of moved against Democrats. Um whereas you know like relatively speaking if you're really looking in the weeds like Kansas is a state where Harris I think the PVI we call it the gap between that and the national spread declined in Kansas a little bit.

Um, so maybe you're having some last in first out where the people that join the Trump coalition like Hispanics, working-class whites, maybe just moving a little bit back in the other direction or maybe just not voting, right? You know, one reason why Trump polls in 24 was overperformance among like young men. The one group you do not want to rely on to turn out in a midterm is usually young men.

Um, and as you get more into the more traditionally purple or bluer states, uh, you know, Maine, they have nominated like a more left candidate, you know, Jackson replacing Platner, who is also a more left candidate. Obviously, Abdul sayed in Michigan, the more left candidate won in Minnesota, the more kind of left candidate, one for the Democrats, and it seems like she's going to win, but is performing a little bit worse than people are comfortable with.

So, I feel like one way you could squint at this is to say in redder states, Democrats have been, you know, very purposefully choosing candidates who just seem more independent, right? [snorts] You know, and that as you go down to where Democrats felt more comfortable and could take more risk, they're taking more risk and trading away some of the possible gains. Like that would be the moderation wins thesis of like what we're seeing.

No, I think that's a lot of it. I think a lot of it also if you look at a state like Minnesota where Peggy Flanigan is ahead, but by three and a half or four points,

Um, but you know, I think people are there's an anti-inccumbent mood. [laughter] People, I think, are making this implicit calculation about who has kind of power over my life, right?

There's something I was thinking about while I was like going through and trying to decide which of the candidates seem to me to be overperforming the most. I was thinking about how uncorrelated attention and performance is right now. So it's like if I go through the candidates who are all over my feeds and who are on big podcasts and and I mean obviously some of this is also their choice of of of how to run but it's like uh like Abdul said like omnipresent right James Taro omnipresent John Of he's not going on many national podcasts at the moment but his clips are absolutely everywhere you're not seeing sher brown right you're not seeing um you know very much of Mary Pollola right she does not do a lot of national press you're not seeing a lot of Roy Cooper but It's really like you look at it and there is almost no connection between who are the candidates who are everywhere, you know, on social media and my feeds and who are the candidates who are doing practically well or poorly um at least in polls.

I mean, look, in midterms, um there are basically three big questions, right? Will your voters turn out? Will the other side's voters turn out? And then how much persuasion is taking place among, you know, the 15% of the elector that's possibly swing voters. Um, and you know, if Democrats were to come up short in a couple of races like Iowa or Kansas, they might say, you know what, this race just got like a little bit too much on everybody's on everybody's radar and Republicans managed to drag some voters off the finish line. I mean, the persuasion part of this is done. I'd be shocked if Democratic turnout wasn't high by midterm standards. We don't know if Republicans are going to turn out and and that will determine the range between Republicans hold the Senate and keep Democrats to 10 seats in the House and complete 1994 style disaster.

So the right now I mean we're talking a little bit as if the thing Democrats are hoping will happen will happen.

I I think Democrats have the emotional feeling that when there's a polling error, it is, you know, against them, right? Because it, you know, Hillary Clinton and and and and Joe Biden and just in general, polls actually have repeatedly underestimated Donald Trump. But but is that true? And is it particularly true in in midterms? Have polling errors been consistently against Democrats?

Um, so yeah, the critique I have of some of the people say, they'll say, well, you know, you're under sampling Republicans in these polls and Democrats are much more enthusiastic and much more likely to respond and trust the pollsters more. Every single person in the industry is is aware of that. Look, I think every pollster is aware that polls missed uh low on Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Um, you know, the three presidential years was kind of the death nail for the gold standard of polling, which is like we're just going to go and survey people and and we'll wait to well-known census demographics and we'll just we'll just trust the data.

The an Seltzer poll in Iowa, [laughter] which and bless I mean, she was literally the highest rated pollster. She and then your times were like I think tied for number one or something, right? Um but now

Um and our model was pretty skeptical. you don't usually want to bet against an Seltzer, but like it kind of opened up this whole world like what if everyone's just kind of way overcompensating for past elections and and it didn't make a lot of sense, but she had gotten very far before just saying I'm just going to trust my data. I'm not going to overly massage it, not make too many assumptions about it. And the poll was off by what was it like 13 or 14 or 15 points.

And I'm not sure what the right metaphor is. But people wanted to make it like it's some broken gauge that like you're um that you know on your beat up old car that when it says 25% of fuel left actually have to refill because the gauge is broken. Right? Instead this is a more of an iterative process. Right? You open a restaurant, the customers complain the food is too spicy. You tamp it down a little bit. Now some of your customers say no I wanted the spice back in my food. Right? And so but it's more of an innovative process. And I think um pollsters are now aware they'll be judged on their results in the final few weeks at least. And as much as they might say, well, it's just a snapshot of public opinion, there are huge reputational stakes on the line for for being right. So I mean the pers and for being wrong.

If there's a if there's like a like let's say the House is kind of close, right? And Democrats only pick up North Carolina in the Senate, right? I mean then that's kind of hard to contemplate almost right not just not because it's not theoretically possible based on the polls right like you know we have these in our model these like fat tails that say sometimes polls can by five or six or seven points or something crazy right um but that would kind of like defy everything that we think we know about how how midterms work

there are I think a couple of races that feel to me like they have like a a lot of outsized narrative importance. Telerico feels to me like it's got a lot of narrative importance to people. You know, the possibility of Democrats being competitive in Texas, a sort of return of a religious left. Abdul sayed is going to be seen as a very important test of, you know, he's actually not a DSA guy, but sort of a more left populist, you know, unsparing candidate. Like I was watching this video where he just like absolutely annihilates this guy who comes to one of his town halls and is like will you denounce to the Muslim Brotherhood and I mean Elsiad who's a very very very smart guy leaves this guy like a smoking like crater on the floor.

So the two big apart from who wins, right? The two big sub story lines of November 3rd are one, how do progressives do relative to moderates? But then is there evidence of like an AI backlash um from the state-by-state results, right? If people do these ecological analyses afterward, they find, hey, yeah, in states where there was a data center construction and Republicans underperformed by by three points, I mean, that might be important as well.

Yeah. If if [snorts] I I'll say I were to lose, then win or lose the Senate, and that's a very bad narrative for progressives. I don't know what happens if like um you know, let's say that um Benson wins by nine points and Elsa wins by four, right? Maybe nerds like me are like, well, he had a below average wins of a replacement. That proves my thesis, but like I think that wouldn't really carry the day in the Democratic debate as much.

Um, I I think for any race, an important threshold question is, was the race called on election night? Right? That shapes narratives quite a bit. People who aren't nerds tend not to pay much attention to the margin as long as it seems unambiguous and clear.

Um, I mean, look, people wanted to tell this oversupplied narrative of like the progressives like winning everywhere in the primary, and that wasn't entirely true. You know, Franchesca Hong was ultimately rejected in Wisconsin. Um, I don't know that Jasmine Crockett actually is more progressive than Taller Rico. She's more of a partisan bombthrower and and she lost that that race. Um, yeah,

But when I look at the Democratic talent right now and I think about you know on the left people like Zan Mani and Abdul Seed and AOC who are hugely talented like I think El say'll be like a pretty superstar US senator if he wins. Um, you know, and then I look at, you know, people like Rob Sand who's, you know, looks like he's going to win the Iowa governor's race in a walk, but you think about Telerico who like is like really a star. John Of who has become an absolute superstar.

Like I think you're just sort of seeing like the arrival of like a Democratic class that is just more native to this era. Like came in during Obama, then was shaped by Trump, understands communication now. just something to me seems to be changing that is actually across a different faction like they all now have stars in a way that I wouldn't have said was true a few years ago.

I think some kind of like a Steph Curry effect with Obama as an analog where like he starts shooting three-pointers from where no one has before and now kids are practicing that in in high school and they graduate and grow to college in the NBA.

So, we've been talking a lot about the Senate, and the Senate is like the charismatic megapon of midterms because there are only a couple races you have to pay attention to, and you can keep the characters of them in mind.

Um, in Texas and Florida, you were not seeing many Republican gains because in Texas, the theory was that like, oh, we can now we can now take more risks because we now have a much firmer hold with lower income Hispanic voters. Well, if you believe the polls, those are the groups that are shifting most aggressively back toward Democrats. And in Florida, Dantis kind of drew a riskier map that was optimized more for presidential years and would have a lot of toss up to lean our districts in an environment like this one.

Now, in Florida, Republicans have, you know, I we talked before about like, well, what if Democrats win in Kansas or Texas? At this point, it would almost feel as remarkable if a Democrat won a statewide race. And

If you look at like voter registration data, um people have begun to again register more as Democrats than Republicans, which which was not true for like four or five years in a row. Um this year you seeing those comebacks for Democrats in the Midwest in particular in Pennsylvania, but not in Florida. Florida just keeps getting redder at the registration level.

You know, Trump has on the margin not wanted to lose the midterm election. He did this weird midterm convention, but his whole theory of why Republicans might lose a midterm convention appears to be that he himself is not on the ballot and that if only people would act like he is on the ballot, Republicans would be fine. Then his other theory was to promise every American a $5,000 check if Republicans win. So like to bribe people. It's like he's willing to win the midterm if he can win it in a way that is personally congratulatory of him. But if winning the midterm means giving Republicans space from him and you know backing people he doesn't really like

Um because the one magic trick that Trump has is to get a certain type of usually disengaged voter to kind of like crawl on glass to vote for him when he himself is on on the ballot. And furthermore, these are the exact voters that aren't answering polls or that are incorrectly deemed to be unlikely voters or anything like that, right? Um, those people are not gonna crawl over glass to vote for Roger Marshall or Ken Paxton, I don't think.

But I I don't want to lose the side of the big picture here, right? The I don't think we'd be talking about Democrats being favored in the Senate if Trump hadn't decided to go to war with Iran and spike gas prices into the mid4 per gallon. More here in California and places like that, less in some other places.

also just kind of fatigue. Um, you know, Trump likes to say it's his third term, but it kind of feels that way. He's been the dominant figure in American politics since whatever mid 2015. That's a that's a really long time. He's also um 80 years old, you know, like you, Ezra, you and I were both kind of early on that Biden is too old. I don't know if you have to censor that bandwagon. Um, but Biden began to develop more problems at roughly this point in his presidency, you know, and it's like, okay, you we've already mentioned the two things that are maybe not hard to explain, but like why the war with Iran and then why is Trump taking this very unpopular stance on data centers, which feels like kind of the perfect issue for a populist to do some mild demagoguing in the other direction, right? like data centers are like a a 8020 issue against data centers now roughly. And when you ask people do you want to have LA AI accelerate or slow down. It's like 3% for accelerate and like 60% for slow down and 30% are not sure or whatever.

And then he's got nothing, right? Then you've got high interest rates, you've got terrible debt, you've got, you know, anemic growth, you've got a weak stock market. And like the thing where all the investment was going is no longer maybe working out.

And also, and I think it's not nothing here, a bunch of AI execs have donated a ton of money to Donald Trump and Elon Musk personally, and I want to talk about this too, is like individually financing at this point the Republican midterm campaign, right? Like I mean, what's he put in? It's hundreds of millions of dollars

You know, you've also had just in the past week or two, you've had oil prices increase sharply again in the Middle East. I don't know. I mean, if there were to be a last week surprise, [laughter] the most obvious surprise would be some kind of market downturn that would kind of further hurt Trump potentially. Things can break a lot more.

If you were to tell me some like Russia Ukraine or Iran America or Israel, Iran or some combination of things like Gulf State like that it like flies even more out of control than it already is. Like that would seem totally plausible to me. some kind of rogue AI behavior. Yeah. That attacks like, you know, an American AI swarm attacks China or a Chinese AI swarm attacks America. Like the world feels full of risk to me. And like we've seen, you know, lame duck presidents like that. Like really things begin to like blow up in their face and they have very little power or public credibility to then handle it.

You know, if Republicans lose the Senate, probably one of the first people that should be blamed is Pete Pegsith, I think. Right. Um, I don't think there are very many people who would serve a secretary of defense that would have thought that going to war with Iran with this very ambiguous war plan and very ambiguous goals was a was a smart idea.

um what does this all look like if the stock market goes into freef fall because it turns out AI isn't not ready for prime time because it's actually too dangerous or you know what if we do end up in confrontation with China like the number of things that could go wrong and not just go wrong geopolitically but in a way that would then correlate into the economy in like a catastrophic fashion potentiating some crazy meltdown to say nothing of like the way Trump might act if he's really cornered in the last two years and begin like going into like high tilt strategies to use one of your poker turns and Trump older and surrounded by Pete Hegaths.

Does the Musk money dump matter? Does money in general matter this late in the election?

The other thing too is that like when you are um buying ads with voter donated money, you get better rates and also you get better rates if you have that money raised earlier and and lock that in when it's less competitive, right? So you hear about the Republican financial advantage. Um because that's primarily corporate money and party money. Um it's probably translating to more like 50/50 in terms of actual ad impressions that voters are seeing.

What's different though is that like so in 24 um I had an exercise where I'm like here are I think it became like a list of like 21 reasons why the political environment favored Donald Trump. And I'm like I'm going to do one to be fair for why it favors Harris. But I could like only come up with like four or five things. Right? This here that's the reverse. The fundamental conditions feel terrible for Republicans, right? You have the secondterm 80-year-old president who had a bad midterm when he was younger and more popular and the economy was perceived as better in 2018. Um, and now you have Iran, you have 450 gas, you have Jeffrey Epstein, right? Um, you have corruption in in the White House, you have the strong batch of Democratic candidates.

You know, in some ways it's um you'd imagine that it would be a worse year for Republicans in 2018, right? And if that's true, that means like Democrats win the popular vote by the House by for by for by by like 10 or 11 points or something. And so my my my guts really contradictory, right? I worry more about the state polls being wrong than the national race being being miscalibrated.

And so, um, so it's a fascinating book. It's very detailed. It's not like a beach read. Um, but, um, but very compelling about all these massive changes that aren't well measured by GDP. And then I tie that to my France thing because it's like Europe has kind of opted for lower GDP growth, but arguably um, higher quality of life. Maybe in the best time talking about France this week, but still.

Um, book number two is called You Can Just Do Things by Kate Hall. Kate is a former poker player and kind of a fellow traveler. Um, she was at one point the highest ranked um, uh, women poker player, female player in the world. She developed um, a a drug addiction and kind of dropped off the map for a couple of years. um but is now back to working in in the Bay Area scene. And it's kind of a self-help book for a certain type of of nerd that emphasizes the importance of of agency, but a lot of it really is about like how to handle personal relationships better and how poor people are at at communicating sometimes basic goals and needs and wants and relationships because they think it might feel weird or whatever else. But like she's like, "Look, just have honest conversations with people, get honest feedback, and that will that will go a long way in life." So, I recommend that book, too.

Um, last one is another oldie but goodie. Um, there is not. So, I read a lot of like poker strategy books, like probably not appropriate for the Esper Klein show for recommendations. Probably the best poker related book of all time is called The Biggest Game in Town. It was written by a guy named Al Alvarez in 1983. It's a it's a short, compact read. So he was like a British literary critic and poet who did this thing where he kind of like went into the desert in Las Vegas when the World Series of Poker is coming into being and talks to like all these oldtime like Texas Roadhouse gamblers. It's very well written, a very maybe slightly overwritten, like kind of magaziney way, but like this part of the world's important to me, right? And it's one of the few books about gambling that doesn't fall into cliches and captures this part of the world that I'm fascinated by very well.

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