As you may have heard, there’s a pretty important election coming up. That means it’s time to bring back the one and only Nate Silver.
Silver, the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, boasts one of the best election forecasting records of any analyst in the last 15 years. His forecasting models successfully predicted the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 US presidential election and all 50 states in 2012. And in 2016, Silver’s FiveThirtyEight gave Donald Trump a 28 percent chance of victory — a significantly higher percentage than virtually any other prominent analyst at the time. He knows what he’s talking about, and it shows in this conversation. We discuss:
What went wrong with the polls in 2016 — and whether pollsters today have corrected for those mistakes
Why a 2016-sized polling error in 2020 would still hand Joe Biden the election
Why the 2020 race has been so incredibly steady despite a global pandemic, an economic crisis, and the biggest national protest movement in US history
The possibility of a Biden landslide
The not-so-small chance that Biden could win Texas and Georgia
The massive Republican advantage in the Senate, House, and Electoral College — and how that affects our national politics
Why the Senate would still advantage Republicans, even if Democrats added five blue states.
Whether the Bernie Sanders left took the wrong lessons from 2016
Why Biden’s unorthodox 2020 campaign strategy has been so successful
Whether Sanders would be doing just as well against Trump as Biden is doing
How a more generic, non-Trump Republican would be faring against Biden
Why Silver is generally optimistic that we will avoid an electoral crisis on November 3
And much more.
References:
“How FiveThirtyEight’s 2020 Presidential Forecast Works — And What’s Different Because Of COVID-19.” Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight
“The Senate’s Rural Skew Makes It Very Hard For Democrats To Win The Supreme Court.” Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight
Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College by Jesse Wegman
“Toby Ord on existential risk, Donald Trump, and thinking in probabilities.” The Ezra Klein Show
“The Real Story of 2016” by Nate Silver
Book recommendations:
The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova
Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
The Precipice by Toby Ord
Credits:
Producer/Audio engineer – Jeff Geld
Researcher – Roge Karma
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