Yep. I was saying weeks ago that Nate is likely going to be over-doing the bounce adjustment because Harris was already on a roll. A DNC bounce was already going to be muted, and then you add that RFK kind of stole the headlines right after the DNC (obviously intentionally)
Also the polls that show Trump ahead in PA are mostly low quality.
I have a feeling that the Trump campaign and the MSM are going to specifically point to Nate’s model to “formally declare” that the DNC was a dud and produced no bounce, that Harris has lost all her steam and now Trump has the “momentum”. The problem is this narrative has a psychological impact on undecided voters..
Whelp, Bloomberg just came out with some interesting polls, so it's going to be a whiplash... with a few more whiplashes to come, I'm sure. Why are the post-convention state polls coming out so slowly?! Arggh!
That's way too nuanced to get any political capital out of. I get where you're coming from, but wonks won't be influenced by this stuff, and nobody else cares.
I guess. Insofar as my personal opinion and words online have any impact, I don't see much difference.
The only thing I feel is relevant from 2016 is that now I'm prepared that, regardless of what I believe, what I think the polls say, what I think other people *should* believe, Trump may yet win. And that much I have accepted as fact. Trump may win. It's not over until the fat bastard sings.
Considering the post DNC Emerson College poll is one point higher for Harris than their previous poll in August (showing Trump +1), and the model is weighing it heavily it seems like it's too hard of an overcorrection.
538 has fixed its model to be 80 plus percent based on polls and not so fundamentals focused. They show Harris leading by 3.6% similar to Nate. And a 59% probability of winning. Her record for Nate's model is 57% probability of winning with a 3.1% popular vote lead. Until Nate's DNC adjustment period ends in 2 weeks I'm ignoring his model and assuming 538 is a nowcast for if she holds her 3.5% lead.
I wouldn’t trust anything they say until it’s been at least a few election cycles and their model has been proven to have some actual predictive value. Pretty clear that site is beyond dysfunctional right now.
I don't think that's far off from the truth, as in I don't think it's so significantly off from Nate's model that you can credibility claim to believe one and not the other based on this fact alone. There's still 2 months until the election, and probabilities are not destiny. A model showing Biden at 50% in June is not de facto bogus.
If you're saying this based purely on your impression that people *shouldn't* have been supporting Biden, then I'll just counter with there's a much larger expectation popular expectation that people shouldn't be supporting Trump, so the fact that that support is measured in a model isn't evidence against that model.
I definitely trust Nate's approach more than most of the public election models, but that's as much about his commentary about where the model may be falling down as the model itself.
A huge bonus with Nate’s model is that he’s open about what the bounce target is. And so you can see while it’s in line with several decade average, it’s not inline with the last 3 cycles which we know is a very different environment vs 2008 & before.
Frankly I very much expected this, although RFK Jr wrinkle probably exasperated it a bit.
Because "exasperated" makes no sense in that sentence. For one thing, it's an "intransitive" verb, denoting a state, not an action. It can take a person as a predicate nominative, as in "John exasperated me with his refusal to close the window."
It does not take a direct object which is a thing acted upon, in this case "the bounce target". "Exacerbated" literally means "made worse", which makes sense in that you were saying that RFK's withdrawal made identifying the size of Harris' convention bounce more difficult to discern.
Many people are making this error these days, because the words sound similar. They do mot mean the same thing at all.
Yeah like, I hope I'm not doing some copium here but didn't Nate post just in this last week an infographic showing that Biden effectively got no DNC polling boost at all in 2020? Am I misremembering this?
Even on a vibe level, it felt like there would be minimal bounce. Everyone had been fixated on Kamala since Biden dropped out...so what was the DNC really going to change?
That’s what I think. I mean usually the candidate is fixed early in the primary. Then this person gets an initial bounce. Then a year goes by and the convention happens and gets ANOTHER bounce. Harris is having one big bounce, one could argue. I think it’s quite clear that her bounce can’t be as big as the one of any “normal” candidate.
The narrow slice of reachable voters, especially the right-of-center or otherwise historically GOP or even 16/20 Trump viters that soured somewhat on Trump.
That reach to the center & disaffected GOP members, to allay the Red Scare stuff.
And I think we’re seeing that. Not in the differential but the absolute % climb.
And in that particular case that gigantic boost was, I have to assume, at least partly because it was essentially voters' introduction to him at large as the nominee, given Clinton was not locked in as the party frontrunner going in. Pretty much the more ceremonial version of what happened with Harris a month ago.
Given that typically “bounce” implies expectation of receding to some degree, a “bounce” that sticks & even increases over the weeks…is great news for John McCain?
GTF over yourself. The opposite really, I only happened to notice you reply here because someone hit Like on my post. I turned off notifications for your posts, you loser.
It’s that you keep desperating shitting all over the floor here, I guess? Bound to run across your unhinged demented crap occasionally
This seems pretty likely to me, though with how long it's been stretching I'm not sure I'd call it a bounce anymore (and obviously the simple probability numbers in Nate's model would suggest a sort of elongated bounce that's now fading but as other people here are saying, I think it's being pretty conservative right now). Nate's talked about working the model around Harris' late entry but I think there's maybe just some somewhat uncharted waters here he doesn't quite know how to fit the model around yet.
I mean, all models are based on past history and obviously when you have significant changes the models become less relevant. The "art" in modeling is being deeply familiar with the problem space and knowing how to tweak your model/results to adapt to changing conditions.
But changing the model/results according to "feelz" is also a problem. I know that Nate tries to change the model minimally during the election season. Agreed, that also leads to problems, when the landscape changes in ways not accounted for in the model. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
At this point I suspect that what really matters is the competency of the individual creating the model in terms of deciding what needs to change on the fly.
Almost certainly yes. I think it's better to treat the "convention bounce" like she was the incumbent. I assume theres much less of an incumbent bounce when you already expect the nominee is decided.
It was already decided for her as if she had been the incumbent, she is literally the VP so she's at least incumbent adjacent, I have to guess the model behaves differently around the convention whether it's an incumbent or not, and if it doesn't it probably should.
Because the primary way to understand the post convention bump is not as a response to what happened at the convention, though that's a part of it. The primary way to understand the post convention bump is an alignment around the understating that this is the candidate, period.
I might agree with this but say that it might not matter in this case, because it did feel like Kamala was also getting a honeymoon bounce since she entered so late after the "Joever" funereal vibes. So, it might be overaggressive, but it might be a wash considering that the honeymoon vibes could be wearing off soon.
Or, it might mean that we're actually in the same place as a month after the convention, and the honeymoon period is already over and the polls are real.
I think many other responses have already done this. Harris effectively got the convention bounce from her entry into the race. The major question is, should we treat *her entry* as if it were the convention, in which case these polls would be treated with less skepticism at this point, or should we treat *all* of the time between her entry and the convention as if it were a long form democratic convention, and thus in some ways would be an entirely unprecedented scenario, which in modern politics at this level, it is.
The Pennsylvania polling shift has the appearance of Simpson's Paradox*. The model is mostly weighting pollsters who have Trump ahead, but those pollsters are actually showing better results for Harris than they were the last time they polled. Curious what others think of this.
*If you take each pollster on its own, Harris is improving, but the composition of pollsters (and their weights) is changing in Trump's favor.
Should we expect the house effect adjustment to address this completely? I'd think the distribution of pollsters over time would be stationary -- no particular reason, at least not one that can be modeled easily*, to expect pollsters with particular house effects to go into the field at particular times.
* Certainly if it's adversarial, with pollsters timing their releases to influence the average, that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
Over time yes, but in the day to day snapshot, the model assigns much higher weight to the most recent handful of polls, which could create some noise.
Right now in PA, the most highly weighted poll is one that shows an even race, but that pollster’s most recent poll was a +1 advantage for Trump.
The third most highly weighted poll shows a slight margin for Trump, but that pollster’s most recent poll before was +7.
Also of note, the convention bounce adjustment is subtracting ~2 points from Harris for polls that happen during the DNC. That is probably more important than what I’m going on about.
Though even if changes in the mix of pollsters don't contribute a mean shift, I wonder if they should inflate the variance. Does the model condition on the timing of polls by particular pollsters? Or are they random and resampled somehow?
Yeah Emerson is +0 in PA now, but was +2 Trump for Aug 13-14. So actually an improvement. I wonder if the convention bump is really what is causing this discrepancy though? IIRC the model does not try to calculate a "bias" or anything like that in polls, so even improvement in one particular poll matters less than just the most recent available polls.
I think it's better to not focus to much on the convention bounce. My gut says that the primary motivator of the convention bounce is the consolidation of support behind the party nominee, and the universal understanding and acceptance that *this* is the nominee, no matter what. If that's the case, that would have been the situation for Harris the moment she entered the race, not at the end of the convention.
In which case, either the convention bounce happened already, and has passed, or we need to think of the *entire window* between her entry to the race and end of the convention as if it were "the convention", which means we need to treat her *earlier* polls as if they were convention polls, too. Or, probably more accurately, it means we need to treat this like a unique situation that a model is gonna have a real hard time accounting for until after it's already happened.
Either way, all we're trying to figure out is how accurate this particular model actually is. We'll figure out in a couple of weeks, when the model thinks we're in the post convention period, how weird or not weird the reversion to the mean looks. I expect the reversion to be low to non existent, and the model to show improved chances for Harris as a result. But we'll see.
I was with you until that last sentence. Let it go. There was a risk that if she chose Shapiro it would have been spun as 'oh, she's trying to win PA', i.e. that she makes her decisions only with regard to short term political calculations and therefore we shouldn't trust her. Do we really think the media wouldn't have done that, given that they all want Trump, because they think constant crisis and fear is good, even necessary at this point, for their business model? Years of fascism and the elimination of all of our freedoms just to sell more papers. Talk about short term calculations.
I agree with "let it go", but for different reasons. Shapiro had a bit of baggage dragging around in the local PA media. Some of it maybe sorta could have been damaging? Let's say Harris chose him, and those stories surfaced. Would a two or three week media cycle about Shapiro with salacious whiffs have overshadowed the Democrat convention of "joy"? Maybe. Add to that perhaps (maybe) a lot MORE Gaza protesters (not an endorsement, just a prediction)? That convention could have gone off the rails and thrown the vibes out the window. Walz meanwhile has proven to be a solid choice, with his military service attacks petering out, and his Midwest charisma on constant display. I just don't think there was some magic bullet that would have delivered PA to Harris, and I'm definitely skepitcal that Shapiro would have been a net positive, given his local troubles.
All good points. What I read at the time was that Walz wanted to be fully a team player, while Shapiro had too many of his own ambitions and agendas. If so that's a sound reason for making the choice she did imo.
Think all nate is saying is that PA is likely a tipping point state and Shapiro would have increased Harris' chance of winning the state -- be it incrementally compared to Walz.
And I was likewise with you until the end. One might argue that media owners want Trump (though I'd disagree even there, aside from obvious cases like Fox), but certainly most of the actual writers and editors producing copy for the msm would prefer Trump lose.
I dunno. People do stuff against their own long term interests all the time. And in terms of short term benefits, whatever else you might say about him, Trump drives ratings. He's sort of like an idiot Howard Stern. TV journalism at least, has become entertainment in a reality TV sort of way. I could definitely see CNN et al "overcorrecting" with Harris criticism, Trump winning, and not crying about it after. Trump already enjoys a scenario where the MSM tries to present his statements and interviews as WAY MORE coherent than they actually. It's an exhausting asymmetry. If Harris said ANY ONE THING that Trump did, the MSM would torpedo her campaign
It is hard to know what the owners truly want in their hearts, but I think that there is a fair perception that Trump is good for media because he drives engagement. I have certainly noticed that the nytimes aggressively fact checks the Harris campaign in a way that they do not for Trump (by contrast, I find AP news much more reasonable). Whether or not this reflects actual pro-Trump bias I can't say, but I do think that the _effect_ is pro Trump.
The fact-checking may have more to do with novelty. When the Harris campaign says something that isn't true, it's news. When the Trump campaign says something that isn't true, it's a day of the week ending in Y.
On the other hand though, journalists are smart, knowledgeable people, who broadly realize that Trump is unfit to be president. So yes, they're going to follow their instincts and write what gets attention to some extent. But at the same time, they broadly want Trump to lose, because they're also Americans and human beings who don't want bad things to happen. I think it's easy for those of us who agree with Trump's unfitness to see how often it's presented as a given in the media. I tend to read WaPo more than NYT, but it's probably similar; while the comments there persistently complain about a rightward bias, I find that Trump generally comes across looking terrible (as he should when his behavior is fairly reported). Yes, there is mild criticism of Harris as well, but without that, the paper would come across as a pure liberal shill to anyone on the fence. And yes, Trump doesn't get fact checked on everything he says, but I think even his supporters at this point would admit that he lies regularly; that line of attack isn't really effective against him anymore, because it's baked into opinions of him. (Now, if a particular untrue thing he's said is winning him support, then debunking that would be another story. But it would also be newsworthy, and likely to be discussed in the msm.)
Sure. There is no question that the overall reporting paints at the Times and the Post a far more negative image of Trump and Vance than Harris and Walz. My point is just that they are not applying the same journalistic standards consistently to both candidates. Overall, given how deeply unpopular Trump's actual policies are and how close this election remains, I have to wonder to what extent they continue to get played by Trump. For me, I don't have a problem with them pushing back on the Harris campaign and holding them accountable, but they need to make it clear that the breadth of misleading statements and exaggerations coming from the two camps is not remotely comparable. Otherwise they are essentially just both-siding their coverage.
Yeah, I agree that's a fair point. It's tricky with Trump though, since he's so egregious that it's difficult to cover him fairly without looking incredibly biased against him to someone who might be undecided. So I'm not confident either way; you could certainly be right, but I think there's also a chance that going in that direction could just lead persuadable voters to write it off as biased.
Completely agree that Trump is extremely difficult to cover because the normal rules don't apply. On some level, I think that both sides of the partisan divide think the other side is dumber than they actually are. I think anyone reading the Times, WaPO, WSJ or Fox News knows exactly what they are consuming. The left has been trying futilely for almost ten years to educate people on how terrible Trump is. The truth is that, as you said, many if not most of his supporters know deep down what a loathsome individual he is. But they also get something out of his leadership that compels them to vote for him. Sadly, I think it is often the experience of rubbing our condescension in our faces even if it ultimately ends up hurting them just as much.
If Harris loses PA by < 1%, her choice will naturally be questioned/criticized. "Let it go" is a fair response to this take if it were coming from a Democrat pundit, but it's a perfectly reasonable take from someone running a newsletter on election forecasting.
All that said, it's been nice to see someone like Walz in the spotlight. He's probably the most relatable candidate we've seen on a presidential ticket since... I don't know when. Definitely seems more relatable than Shapiro.
How is someone who let Minneapolis burn and whose wife enjoyed the smell of burning tires because of the chaos and mayhem which they signified be relatable? He is a far left blowhard who has constantly lied about his credentials and is in favor of minors allowing themselves to be mutilated.
That's one opinion/characterization of things he's done and positions he's taken.
I would say he's relatable because, regardless of his politics, he can have natural, unscripted, off-the-cuff social interactions. Most subscribers here probably saw the video of Vance awkwardly ordering fast food vs. Walz ordering fast food. Or Walz shooting the shit about gutters and sending in rebates at a hardware store.
It all adds up to a person Americans can more easily see as one of their neighbors (or high school teachers), compared to say Trump (too narcissistic), Vance (too awkward), or Harris (too buttoned up).
Yes, it would be. And the only person who's ever suggested prosecuting an opponent just because they're the opponent is... Trump. Prosecutions of Trump, on the other hand, have all been initiated by independent prosecutors, as a result of actual crimes he committed.
Now, I would agree that without the attention from the candidacy he might have gotten away with the accounting fraud in New York, but he still committed crimes and was convicted by a jury. The other cases are much more clear cut, especially the documents case.
It would be quite foolish to be MSM and to want fascism to win. Fascism is incompatible with journalism. I do agree with you they give him way too many headlines and have been the reason he is where he is today even after 10 years.
They haven't realized yet that free and fair press is a luxury afforded only by democracy.
Ahh, thanks pal! Doesn’t this term have a negative connotation? Sounds a little Trump-there is an alternative media-like. Or do you use this normally? Because in Germany the right wing AfD and their followers use often “system media” as a reference to the controlled media in East Germany.
Yes, but the first references I remember were from the left wing and eco-activists talking about the "MSM" only presenting the pro-business perspective.
Right now you need to know the speaker's political position to know whether that person thinks the MSM is too far left or right.
Historically mainstream media has had a neutral connotation I think. Trump definitely likes to use the term in his attacks on the media though, which has probably created a negative connotation for some.
Seriously. MSM let Harris get away with not even a single interview. Also I don't see why they dint cover Harris asking for change of rules for ABC debate and her not accepting fox debate.
The Emerson poll isn't nothing. And I see the poll weights clearly displayed. And, yes, I'm sure PA will be very, very close.
But the graphic with Emerson, Fabrizio, InsiderAdvantage, Cygnal, Rasmussen is a little jarring. A...certain type of pollster has been doing heavy lifting there!
I still can’t believe Shapiro would have been a better choice overall. Walz is killing it, contributing to momentum in a unique way, with an apparently unmatched likability level. No way Shapiro would have met or exceeded that in general.
PA will not be enough anyway, and Shapiro wouldn’t necessarily translate to WI and MI or the others. Quite comfortable with the decision.
Highly doubt swing state voters and veterans support someone with stolen valor. Plus Walz gives off super creepy vibes. The left always projects with their attacks, see: weird.
You honestly don’t believe that this stolen valour narrative sticks. It mainly backfired to Vance since members of service don’t criticise each other. Besides:
It will stick. Veterans don't take kindly to people like Walz using their service for personal and professional gain. And he didn't just do it once. He did it over and over again. He's a phony. Polls also show he's not popular with the group the left needs to win: rural, white, etc. He's another extremist who's doubling down on Kamala's extreme left agenda. And come Nov 6, they'll wonder why they didn't go with Shapiro after all.
"This guy dressed up in a military uniform to get free meals!" would piss average Americans off. "This guy said he was an E-9, but he didn't finish all his paperwork before he retired so he's really an E-8!" is never going to catch on.
And mate, no swing voters around here, you don't to bore us with "HARRIS IS A COMMY1111" rubbish. Everyone here knows she's far more centrist than 2025-DJT and his 8chan VP.
Certainly feels like the model is being way too aggressive hedging against the convention bounce, and is effectively giving Trump a bounce instead.
Yep. I was saying weeks ago that Nate is likely going to be over-doing the bounce adjustment because Harris was already on a roll. A DNC bounce was already going to be muted, and then you add that RFK kind of stole the headlines right after the DNC (obviously intentionally)
Also the polls that show Trump ahead in PA are mostly low quality.
I have a feeling that the Trump campaign and the MSM are going to specifically point to Nate’s model to “formally declare” that the DNC was a dud and produced no bounce, that Harris has lost all her steam and now Trump has the “momentum”. The problem is this narrative has a psychological impact on undecided voters..
Trump would have made a claim like that regardless of what any model says.
True, i guess the MSM is the main problem here
MSM is not a problem when they shill for democrats. Nice
Whelp, Bloomberg just came out with some interesting polls, so it's going to be a whiplash... with a few more whiplashes to come, I'm sure. Why are the post-convention state polls coming out so slowly?! Arggh!
And here we are..
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13827081/liberal-pollster-nate-silver-victory-presidential-candidate-debate.html
That's way too nuanced to get any political capital out of. I get where you're coming from, but wonks won't be influenced by this stuff, and nobody else cares.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13827081/liberal-pollster-nate-silver-victory-presidential-candidate-debate.html
Also Trump himself said that Nate Silver says he’s going to win in a blowout.
It was all incredibly predictable..
I think it's better to be bearish about Harris's chances than to fall into the same trap as Hillary 2016
Indeed, a lot of the reasoning going on smells motivated.
I guess. Insofar as my personal opinion and words online have any impact, I don't see much difference.
The only thing I feel is relevant from 2016 is that now I'm prepared that, regardless of what I believe, what I think the polls say, what I think other people *should* believe, Trump may yet win. And that much I have accepted as fact. Trump may win. It's not over until the fat bastard sings.
Considering the post DNC Emerson College poll is one point higher for Harris than their previous poll in August (showing Trump +1), and the model is weighing it heavily it seems like it's too hard of an overcorrection.
Very good point.
Agree. But deep breaths — as model problems go, this one will be gone in a couple weeks. Would love to know the nowcast though.
538 has fixed its model to be 80 plus percent based on polls and not so fundamentals focused. They show Harris leading by 3.6% similar to Nate. And a 59% probability of winning. Her record for Nate's model is 57% probability of winning with a 3.1% popular vote lead. Until Nate's DNC adjustment period ends in 2 weeks I'm ignoring his model and assuming 538 is a nowcast for if she holds her 3.5% lead.
I wouldn’t trust anything they say until it’s been at least a few election cycles and their model has been proven to have some actual predictive value. Pretty clear that site is beyond dysfunctional right now.
this guy on here talking up the ABC model!!! 😂
Just add 5 points to Nate's model, if you don't like the bounce adjustment! It would make more sense than trusting the 538 one.
538 has “fixed” its model? Come on. 538 had Biden at 50% in June. Their model is a joke.
I don't think that's far off from the truth, as in I don't think it's so significantly off from Nate's model that you can credibility claim to believe one and not the other based on this fact alone. There's still 2 months until the election, and probabilities are not destiny. A model showing Biden at 50% in June is not de facto bogus.
If you're saying this based purely on your impression that people *shouldn't* have been supporting Biden, then I'll just counter with there's a much larger expectation popular expectation that people shouldn't be supporting Trump, so the fact that that support is measured in a model isn't evidence against that model.
I definitely trust Nate's approach more than most of the public election models, but that's as much about his commentary about where the model may be falling down as the model itself.
A huge bonus with Nate’s model is that he’s open about what the bounce target is. And so you can see while it’s in line with several decade average, it’s not inline with the last 3 cycles which we know is a very different environment vs 2008 & before.
Frankly I very much expected this, although RFK Jr wrinkle probably exasperated it a bit.
"exacerbated".
This is becoming a problem. "Exasperated" sits between "irritated" and outright "angry".
????
Why did you switch words? You seem very confused
Because "exasperated" makes no sense in that sentence. For one thing, it's an "intransitive" verb, denoting a state, not an action. It can take a person as a predicate nominative, as in "John exasperated me with his refusal to close the window."
It does not take a direct object which is a thing acted upon, in this case "the bounce target". "Exacerbated" literally means "made worse", which makes sense in that you were saying that RFK's withdrawal made identifying the size of Harris' convention bounce more difficult to discern.
Many people are making this error these days, because the words sound similar. They do mot mean the same thing at all.
Yes, it’s a typo.
That you still understood the meaning of, anyway. So calm tf down maybe?
Yeah like, I hope I'm not doing some copium here but didn't Nate post just in this last week an infographic showing that Biden effectively got no DNC polling boost at all in 2020? Am I misremembering this?
Even on a vibe level, it felt like there would be minimal bounce. Everyone had been fixated on Kamala since Biden dropped out...so what was the DNC really going to change?
That’s what I think. I mean usually the candidate is fixed early in the primary. Then this person gets an initial bounce. Then a year goes by and the convention happens and gets ANOTHER bounce. Harris is having one big bounce, one could argue. I think it’s quite clear that her bounce can’t be as big as the one of any “normal” candidate.
The narrow slice of reachable voters, especially the right-of-center or otherwise historically GOP or even 16/20 Trump viters that soured somewhat on Trump.
That reach to the center & disaffected GOP members, to allay the Red Scare stuff.
And I think we’re seeing that. Not in the differential but the absolute % climb.
Yeah, IIRC, the assumed average included the +16 that Bill Clinton got in 1992!
But Nate doesn’t take the average. Rather the model subtracts 2 points.
And in that particular case that gigantic boost was, I have to assume, at least partly because it was essentially voters' introduction to him at large as the nominee, given Clinton was not locked in as the party frontrunner going in. Pretty much the more ceremonial version of what happened with Harris a month ago.
The question I have is whether Harris got her bounce weeks ago due to the unusual circumstances surrounding her entry unto the race.
Given that typically “bounce” implies expectation of receding to some degree, a “bounce” that sticks & even increases over the weeks…is great news for John McCain?
Kind of difficult to figure out what's going on right now since, strangely enough, there doesn't seem to be a lot of polling
It’s always easy to see what is going with dishonest hacks like you. 🤣
Are you stalking me?
🤣🤣🤣
GTF over yourself. The opposite really, I only happened to notice you reply here because someone hit Like on my post. I turned off notifications for your posts, you loser.
It’s that you keep desperating shitting all over the floor here, I guess? Bound to run across your unhinged demented crap occasionally
This seems pretty likely to me, though with how long it's been stretching I'm not sure I'd call it a bounce anymore (and obviously the simple probability numbers in Nate's model would suggest a sort of elongated bounce that's now fading but as other people here are saying, I think it's being pretty conservative right now). Nate's talked about working the model around Harris' late entry but I think there's maybe just some somewhat uncharted waters here he doesn't quite know how to fit the model around yet.
I mean, all models are based on past history and obviously when you have significant changes the models become less relevant. The "art" in modeling is being deeply familiar with the problem space and knowing how to tweak your model/results to adapt to changing conditions.
But changing the model/results according to "feelz" is also a problem. I know that Nate tries to change the model minimally during the election season. Agreed, that also leads to problems, when the landscape changes in ways not accounted for in the model. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
At this point I suspect that what really matters is the competency of the individual creating the model in terms of deciding what needs to change on the fly.
Almost certainly yes. I think it's better to treat the "convention bounce" like she was the incumbent. I assume theres much less of an incumbent bounce when you already expect the nominee is decided.
It was already decided for her as if she had been the incumbent, she is literally the VP so she's at least incumbent adjacent, I have to guess the model behaves differently around the convention whether it's an incumbent or not, and if it doesn't it probably should.
Because the primary way to understand the post convention bump is not as a response to what happened at the convention, though that's a part of it. The primary way to understand the post convention bump is an alignment around the understating that this is the candidate, period.
100% agree with this.
Which is the opposite of what happened during the Republican convention. It'll come out in the wash.
I might agree with this but say that it might not matter in this case, because it did feel like Kamala was also getting a honeymoon bounce since she entered so late after the "Joever" funereal vibes. So, it might be overaggressive, but it might be a wash considering that the honeymoon vibes could be wearing off soon.
Or, it might mean that we're actually in the same place as a month after the convention, and the honeymoon period is already over and the polls are real.
At this point, hard to distinguish.
If you feel a model i’d wrong, you should try to be more specific. You might be right, but until you explain your feelings, why should I credit them?
I think many other responses have already done this. Harris effectively got the convention bounce from her entry into the race. The major question is, should we treat *her entry* as if it were the convention, in which case these polls would be treated with less skepticism at this point, or should we treat *all* of the time between her entry and the convention as if it were a long form democratic convention, and thus in some ways would be an entirely unprecedented scenario, which in modern politics at this level, it is.
The Pennsylvania polling shift has the appearance of Simpson's Paradox*. The model is mostly weighting pollsters who have Trump ahead, but those pollsters are actually showing better results for Harris than they were the last time they polled. Curious what others think of this.
*If you take each pollster on its own, Harris is improving, but the composition of pollsters (and their weights) is changing in Trump's favor.
Should we expect the house effect adjustment to address this completely? I'd think the distribution of pollsters over time would be stationary -- no particular reason, at least not one that can be modeled easily*, to expect pollsters with particular house effects to go into the field at particular times.
* Certainly if it's adversarial, with pollsters timing their releases to influence the average, that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
Over time yes, but in the day to day snapshot, the model assigns much higher weight to the most recent handful of polls, which could create some noise.
Right now in PA, the most highly weighted poll is one that shows an even race, but that pollster’s most recent poll was a +1 advantage for Trump.
The third most highly weighted poll shows a slight margin for Trump, but that pollster’s most recent poll before was +7.
Also of note, the convention bounce adjustment is subtracting ~2 points from Harris for polls that happen during the DNC. That is probably more important than what I’m going on about.
Though even if changes in the mix of pollsters don't contribute a mean shift, I wonder if they should inflate the variance. Does the model condition on the timing of polls by particular pollsters? Or are they random and resampled somehow?
Yeah Emerson is +0 in PA now, but was +2 Trump for Aug 13-14. So actually an improvement. I wonder if the convention bump is really what is causing this discrepancy though? IIRC the model does not try to calculate a "bias" or anything like that in polls, so even improvement in one particular poll matters less than just the most recent available polls.
I think it's better to not focus to much on the convention bounce. My gut says that the primary motivator of the convention bounce is the consolidation of support behind the party nominee, and the universal understanding and acceptance that *this* is the nominee, no matter what. If that's the case, that would have been the situation for Harris the moment she entered the race, not at the end of the convention.
In which case, either the convention bounce happened already, and has passed, or we need to think of the *entire window* between her entry to the race and end of the convention as if it were "the convention", which means we need to treat her *earlier* polls as if they were convention polls, too. Or, probably more accurately, it means we need to treat this like a unique situation that a model is gonna have a real hard time accounting for until after it's already happened.
Either way, all we're trying to figure out is how accurate this particular model actually is. We'll figure out in a couple of weeks, when the model thinks we're in the post convention period, how weird or not weird the reversion to the mean looks. I expect the reversion to be low to non existent, and the model to show improved chances for Harris as a result. But we'll see.
I was with you until that last sentence. Let it go. There was a risk that if she chose Shapiro it would have been spun as 'oh, she's trying to win PA', i.e. that she makes her decisions only with regard to short term political calculations and therefore we shouldn't trust her. Do we really think the media wouldn't have done that, given that they all want Trump, because they think constant crisis and fear is good, even necessary at this point, for their business model? Years of fascism and the elimination of all of our freedoms just to sell more papers. Talk about short term calculations.
I agree with "let it go", but for different reasons. Shapiro had a bit of baggage dragging around in the local PA media. Some of it maybe sorta could have been damaging? Let's say Harris chose him, and those stories surfaced. Would a two or three week media cycle about Shapiro with salacious whiffs have overshadowed the Democrat convention of "joy"? Maybe. Add to that perhaps (maybe) a lot MORE Gaza protesters (not an endorsement, just a prediction)? That convention could have gone off the rails and thrown the vibes out the window. Walz meanwhile has proven to be a solid choice, with his military service attacks petering out, and his Midwest charisma on constant display. I just don't think there was some magic bullet that would have delivered PA to Harris, and I'm definitely skepitcal that Shapiro would have been a net positive, given his local troubles.
All good points. What I read at the time was that Walz wanted to be fully a team player, while Shapiro had too many of his own ambitions and agendas. If so that's a sound reason for making the choice she did imo.
Think all nate is saying is that PA is likely a tipping point state and Shapiro would have increased Harris' chance of winning the state -- be it incrementally compared to Walz.
What alternate universe are you inhabiting? The majority of the MSM themselves admit that they are Dems and personally dislike Trump intensely.
And I was likewise with you until the end. One might argue that media owners want Trump (though I'd disagree even there, aside from obvious cases like Fox), but certainly most of the actual writers and editors producing copy for the msm would prefer Trump lose.
I dunno. People do stuff against their own long term interests all the time. And in terms of short term benefits, whatever else you might say about him, Trump drives ratings. He's sort of like an idiot Howard Stern. TV journalism at least, has become entertainment in a reality TV sort of way. I could definitely see CNN et al "overcorrecting" with Harris criticism, Trump winning, and not crying about it after. Trump already enjoys a scenario where the MSM tries to present his statements and interviews as WAY MORE coherent than they actually. It's an exhausting asymmetry. If Harris said ANY ONE THING that Trump did, the MSM would torpedo her campaign
It is hard to know what the owners truly want in their hearts, but I think that there is a fair perception that Trump is good for media because he drives engagement. I have certainly noticed that the nytimes aggressively fact checks the Harris campaign in a way that they do not for Trump (by contrast, I find AP news much more reasonable). Whether or not this reflects actual pro-Trump bias I can't say, but I do think that the _effect_ is pro Trump.
The fact-checking may have more to do with novelty. When the Harris campaign says something that isn't true, it's news. When the Trump campaign says something that isn't true, it's a day of the week ending in Y.
On the other hand though, journalists are smart, knowledgeable people, who broadly realize that Trump is unfit to be president. So yes, they're going to follow their instincts and write what gets attention to some extent. But at the same time, they broadly want Trump to lose, because they're also Americans and human beings who don't want bad things to happen. I think it's easy for those of us who agree with Trump's unfitness to see how often it's presented as a given in the media. I tend to read WaPo more than NYT, but it's probably similar; while the comments there persistently complain about a rightward bias, I find that Trump generally comes across looking terrible (as he should when his behavior is fairly reported). Yes, there is mild criticism of Harris as well, but without that, the paper would come across as a pure liberal shill to anyone on the fence. And yes, Trump doesn't get fact checked on everything he says, but I think even his supporters at this point would admit that he lies regularly; that line of attack isn't really effective against him anymore, because it's baked into opinions of him. (Now, if a particular untrue thing he's said is winning him support, then debunking that would be another story. But it would also be newsworthy, and likely to be discussed in the msm.)
Sure. There is no question that the overall reporting paints at the Times and the Post a far more negative image of Trump and Vance than Harris and Walz. My point is just that they are not applying the same journalistic standards consistently to both candidates. Overall, given how deeply unpopular Trump's actual policies are and how close this election remains, I have to wonder to what extent they continue to get played by Trump. For me, I don't have a problem with them pushing back on the Harris campaign and holding them accountable, but they need to make it clear that the breadth of misleading statements and exaggerations coming from the two camps is not remotely comparable. Otherwise they are essentially just both-siding their coverage.
Yeah, I agree that's a fair point. It's tricky with Trump though, since he's so egregious that it's difficult to cover him fairly without looking incredibly biased against him to someone who might be undecided. So I'm not confident either way; you could certainly be right, but I think there's also a chance that going in that direction could just lead persuadable voters to write it off as biased.
Completely agree that Trump is extremely difficult to cover because the normal rules don't apply. On some level, I think that both sides of the partisan divide think the other side is dumber than they actually are. I think anyone reading the Times, WaPO, WSJ or Fox News knows exactly what they are consuming. The left has been trying futilely for almost ten years to educate people on how terrible Trump is. The truth is that, as you said, many if not most of his supporters know deep down what a loathsome individual he is. But they also get something out of his leadership that compels them to vote for him. Sadly, I think it is often the experience of rubbing our condescension in our faces even if it ultimately ends up hurting them just as much.
Precisely my argument.
If Harris loses PA by < 1%, her choice will naturally be questioned/criticized. "Let it go" is a fair response to this take if it were coming from a Democrat pundit, but it's a perfectly reasonable take from someone running a newsletter on election forecasting.
All that said, it's been nice to see someone like Walz in the spotlight. He's probably the most relatable candidate we've seen on a presidential ticket since... I don't know when. Definitely seems more relatable than Shapiro.
How is someone who let Minneapolis burn and whose wife enjoyed the smell of burning tires because of the chaos and mayhem which they signified be relatable? He is a far left blowhard who has constantly lied about his credentials and is in favor of minors allowing themselves to be mutilated.
That's one opinion/characterization of things he's done and positions he's taken.
I would say he's relatable because, regardless of his politics, he can have natural, unscripted, off-the-cuff social interactions. Most subscribers here probably saw the video of Vance awkwardly ordering fast food vs. Walz ordering fast food. Or Walz shooting the shit about gutters and sending in rebates at a hardware store.
It all adds up to a person Americans can more easily see as one of their neighbors (or high school teachers), compared to say Trump (too narcissistic), Vance (too awkward), or Harris (too buttoned up).
It’s kind of “fascist” to prosecute the opposition candidate just because he’s the opposition candidate.
Yes, it would be. And the only person who's ever suggested prosecuting an opponent just because they're the opponent is... Trump. Prosecutions of Trump, on the other hand, have all been initiated by independent prosecutors, as a result of actual crimes he committed.
Now, I would agree that without the attention from the candidacy he might have gotten away with the accounting fraud in New York, but he still committed crimes and was convicted by a jury. The other cases are much more clear cut, especially the documents case.
Hahaha independent prosecutors….hahahaha
Yup - and also family members.
Or as Trump says "Where's Hunter?"
The media wants Trump? Apart from the WSJ, they appear to be solid Dem.
It would be quite foolish to be MSM and to want fascism to win. Fascism is incompatible with journalism. I do agree with you they give him way too many headlines and have been the reason he is where he is today even after 10 years.
They haven't realized yet that free and fair press is a luxury afforded only by democracy.
I suspect they are completely underestimating the threat. Much like most Americans. But in my view that ought to be part of their job.
Hello, German fellah here: What does MSM mean? 😅
Mainstream Media. Basically the most popular, nominally unbiased, news outlets.
Ahh, thanks pal! Doesn’t this term have a negative connotation? Sounds a little Trump-there is an alternative media-like. Or do you use this normally? Because in Germany the right wing AfD and their followers use often “system media” as a reference to the controlled media in East Germany.
Yes, but the first references I remember were from the left wing and eco-activists talking about the "MSM" only presenting the pro-business perspective.
Right now you need to know the speaker's political position to know whether that person thinks the MSM is too far left or right.
Historically mainstream media has had a neutral connotation I think. Trump definitely likes to use the term in his attacks on the media though, which has probably created a negative connotation for some.
They (the media) all want Trump? Hi, I’m Earth—have we met?
Seriously. MSM let Harris get away with not even a single interview. Also I don't see why they dint cover Harris asking for change of rules for ABC debate and her not accepting fox debate.
The Emerson poll isn't nothing. And I see the poll weights clearly displayed. And, yes, I'm sure PA will be very, very close.
But the graphic with Emerson, Fabrizio, InsiderAdvantage, Cygnal, Rasmussen is a little jarring. A...certain type of pollster has been doing heavy lifting there!
Good to see that “unskewing the polls” is still a thing.
I mean, yes, by Nate himself. Hence the weights...
I think I'm gonna wait (rather impatiently) until like, late September (post conventions, post debate) to put all my eggs into the model output
Post Trump sentencing too
Goddamn. I forgot about that one
Me, too 🥲
I still can’t believe Shapiro would have been a better choice overall. Walz is killing it, contributing to momentum in a unique way, with an apparently unmatched likability level. No way Shapiro would have met or exceeded that in general.
PA will not be enough anyway, and Shapiro wouldn’t necessarily translate to WI and MI or the others. Quite comfortable with the decision.
Highly doubt swing state voters and veterans support someone with stolen valor. Plus Walz gives off super creepy vibes. The left always projects with their attacks, see: weird.
Tucker? Is that you?
Unhelpful sarcasm
You honestly don’t believe that this stolen valour narrative sticks. It mainly backfired to Vance since members of service don’t criticise each other. Besides:
popularity of Vance: -15.
Walz: +5
But sure, Walz is the weird one!
It will stick. Veterans don't take kindly to people like Walz using their service for personal and professional gain. And he didn't just do it once. He did it over and over again. He's a phony. Polls also show he's not popular with the group the left needs to win: rural, white, etc. He's another extremist who's doubling down on Kamala's extreme left agenda. And come Nov 6, they'll wonder why they didn't go with Shapiro after all.
He served for 24 years.
I know it’s gotta be hard that your boy picked the worst possible guy to be his running mate, though. Deeply, deeply unpopular. Oops.
The Chaplin in Walz's unit called him a coward. That is pretty extreme.
When you are a partisan hack like the guys calling him a coward it falls on deaf ears.
"This guy dressed up in a military uniform to get free meals!" would piss average Americans off. "This guy said he was an E-9, but he didn't finish all his paperwork before he retired so he's really an E-8!" is never going to catch on.
Lying about deploying to war, abandoning his troops before deployment, and constantly lying to advance his political future would piss off average Americans. It sure pisses off his fellow soldiers and his troop leader who publicly came out and denounced Walz. https://www.newsweek.com/veterans-who-served-tim-walz-national-guard-blast-him-impersonator-1947767
Certainly veterans prefer voting for a guy who:
- insulted other veterans (McCain; Kelly)
- devalues the Medal of Honor
- avoided military service by faking an illness
- Who's campaign doesn't respect cemeteries
And mate, no swing voters around here, you don't to bore us with "HARRIS IS A COMMY1111" rubbish. Everyone here knows she's far more centrist than 2025-DJT and his 8chan VP.
How did it backfire for Bush Kerry? I think history suggests it worked.
No. Do you see any news cycle still dealing with the subject? Is even Vance repeating it?