Nate Silver is a left-leaning statistical analyst who took the political world by storm in 2008 after his election forecasting system accurately predicted both the primary results and the presidential winner in 49 states. Although Silver was blindsided by former President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, he is at least willing to acknowledge the faults of the polling industry and try to correct them.
This month, for example, Silver admitted that a lot of polls are probably overstating support for Democratic candidates ahead of the midterm elections in November. Though he claimed it is also possible “the polls could be biased against Democrats,” Silver said his “mental model” is “slightly more favorable to the GOP than the FiveThirtyEight forecast itself.” (Might it be time to make some adjustments to his model?)
The reason, he continued, “is because there’s been steady movement toward the GOP in our model over the past few weeks. In principle, past movement shouldn’t predict future movement in our forecast and it should instead resemble a random walk.”
Silver’s FiveThirtyEight forecast has indeed changed dramatically over the past month. According to his model, the odds that Democrats will retain control of the upper chamber have decreased from 71-29 since Sept. 20, and much of this 16-point shift has come in the last two weeks.
Now, Silver said he considers the Senate to be a toss-up. He noted, “There is now clear movement back toward Republicans. … If a friend asked me to characterize the Senate race, I’d say ‘it’s pretty f***ing close,’ and emphasize that neither party has much of an advantage.”
He continued, “For one thing, as of Thursday afternoon, Republicans realized a slight lead [of 0.1 percentage points] in the FiveThirtyEight generic ballot average for the first time since Aug. 2.” It would appear that Silver is a bit late to the party. The RealClearPolitics average of generic polls has shown Republicans leading for the past four weeks.
What Silver is missing is that there is such a thing as momentum, and right now, Republican candidates have it. Political races are not a series of isolated coin tosses. Past movements in elections actually do provide an indication of future direction.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Silver likely hopes Democrats will prevail. That said, Silver appears to be trying to get ahead of the rebuke he knows is coming in two weeks. He doesn’t want to be accused of making the same mistake he made in 2016.
As we move closer to Election Day, we should expect more liberal pollsters to temper their optimistic pro-Democratic projections from this summer. The polls are going to continue to tighten as undecided voters break toward the GOP. Already, we’re seeing several long-shot Republican candidates close the gap with their opponents.
We’re even seeing GOP strength in gubernatorial races that were once considered to be locks for the Democrats. Republican candidates lead in Nevada and in deep-blue Oregon. And new polls show GOP candidates slightly ahead in New York and tied in Michigan, Wisconsin, and — gasp — Minnesota.
Even Democrats know what’s coming. In the past week alone, Democratic leaders’ rhetoric about the election has changed significantly. No longer are they boasting about their own odds heading into November. Rather, they’re warning voters about what a Republican win might mean for the country.
The problem for Democrats is that voters are far more worried about what another two years of Democratic control would do to their wallets and cities’ crime rates. Biden is an unpopular president who belongs in a nursing home, not the White House. And his unrelenting stream of destructive initiatives has done immense harm to the public. Voters will retaliate — they always do.
I suppose Silver should be commended for recognizing this reality. However, I can’t help but wonder: What took him so long?
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Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and the Western Journal. Her articles have appeared at MSN, RedState, Newsmax, the Federalist, and RealClearPolitics. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
