Transcript

Nate Silver On What the Polls Say — And What His Gut’s Telling Him | The Ezra Klein Show

From The Ezra Klein Show · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 59 min · 11,044 words · 137 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Nate Silver On What the Polls Say — And What His Gut’s Telling Him | The Ezra Klein Show", an episode of The Ezra Klein Show published October 27, 2026 (59 min, about 11,044 words). It mentions 76 people, works and ideas, including Democratic Party, 2026 United States midterm elections, Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, Donald Trump.

What this episode is about

Nate Silver discusses the evolving midterm landscape, arguing Democrats have a plausible path to a Senate majority and evaluating how current polls stack up against political realities, including which races are most competitive and the reliability of polling near Election Day. He also shares insights from his forecasting approach and risk assessment in this volatile cycle.

Key takeaways

  • Kansas flipped from inevitability to a buzzy battleground, showing state-level dynamics trump national narratives.
  • Polls feel loud, but the real story is candidate quality—better Democrats across key races masked by generic optimism.
  • Trump-era fatigue isn’t monolithic: some states swing when incumbents run strong campaigns and Republicans stumble on credibility.
  • Midterm dynamics still punish the president's party, but atypical incumbents and selective wins shrink the usual avalanche.
  • AI and long horizons loom; voters treat 2028 like a rerun—policy curiosities trump momentary party loyalty in polls.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Democratic Party, Kansas, Ezra Klein, Nate Silver
  2. – 10:00: Democratic Party, Michigan, Ken Paxton, Roy Cooper
  3. – 15:00: Democratic Party, Minnesota, Kansas, Jon Ossoff
  4. – 20:00: Democratic Party, Polling error, 2026 United States midterm elections, Abdul El-Sayed
  5. – 25:00: Ann Selzer, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, 2026 United States midterm elections
  6. – 30:00: Democratic Party, 2026 United States midterm elections, James Talarico, Abdul El-Sayed
  7. – 35:00: Democratic Party, James Talarico, Abdul El-Sayed, 2026 United States midterm elections
  8. – 40:00: Democratic Party, Florida, Kansas, Roger Marshall
  9. – 45:00: Democratic Party, Ken Paxton, California, Georgia
  10. – 50:00: Donald Trump, 2026 United States midterm elections
  11. – 55:00: Donald Trump, Democratic Party, Kansas, Iowa
  12. – 59:10: Ezra Klein, Nate Silver

Notable quotes from "Nate Silver On What the Polls Say — And What His Gut’s Telling Him | The Ezra Klein Show"

  • And the remarkable thing about this cycle is that Democrats are polling competitively in all of them.
    about Democratic Party · at
  • If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era.
    about Donald Trump · at
  • They looked pretty bad a couple months ago, and they looked pretty bad primarily because of focus was on the fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee, and instead it's going to be Grand Planter.
    about Maine · at
  • There hasn't been a lot of polling in Maine. Michigan, look, I'm one of those people who says that other things held equal, that a moderate candidate able to do better than a progressive at least in a purple state.
    about Michigan · at
  • Look, the first thing I always tell people is that whenever you're looking at a series of polls in a Senate race or in Senate races, plural, right?
    about Polling error · at
  • Talarico feels to me like it's got a lot of narrative importance to people, possibility of Democrats being competitive in Texas, a sort of return of a religious left. Abdul El-Sayed is.
    about James Talarico · at
  • But that's like a clean three seats swiped out from Democrats, right? in Texas and Florida, you were not seeing many Republican gains because in Texas the theory was that Oh…
    about Texas · at
  • Read what was to me a fully satisfying explanation of how Florida became so red. But, Florida has gone, as you say, from being a canonical swing state to more of a Republican readout than Texas.
    about Florida · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ezra Klein — Person · Host · 4 mentions · first at
    Interviewer and host of the episode guiding the conversation about midterms, polling, and political consequences
    We are a week out from the midterm elections, and something that looked almost impossible a year ago has happened. There is a path for Democrats to win not just the House, but the.
  • Nate Silver — Person · Main guest · 4 mentions · first at
    Primary interview subject; discussed polling, forecasting, Senate and House outlooks, and broader political risks
    These days, he edits the Silver Bulletin on Substack, which puts out a ton of great analysis, polling, and election forecasts. He co-hosts the podcast Still Counting.
  • Donald Trump — Person · Referenced political actor · 12 mentions · first at
    Central subject of discussion about approval ratings, influence on midterm dynamics, and how his standing affects Republican performance
  • James Talarico — Person · Referenced candidate · 5 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a rising Democratic candidate in Texas who has received national attention and is part of discussion about Democrats' overperformance in red states
  • Jon Ossoff — Person · Referenced senator / Democratic talent · 4 mentions · first at
    Held up as an example of a disciplined Democratic incumbent and part of the new generation of Democratic talent
    Jon Ossoff is just like I wouldn't say Georgia's a red state anymore, but Jon Ossoff is just like relentlessly disciplined figure.
  • Joe Biden — Person · Referenced political actor / context for midterm dynamics · 3 mentions · first at
    Used to frame historical midterm trends and comparisons to president's party performance
    If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era.
  • Roy Cooper — Person · Referenced Democratic incumbent / candidate · 5 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a strong recruit and example of a moderate Democrat performing well in a competitive state (North Carolina)
    Populist and you know very well, but Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Jon Ossoff is just like I wouldn't say Georgia's a red state anymore, but Jon Ossoff is just like relentlessly disciplined figure.
  • Ann Selzer — Person · Referenced pollster · 4 mentions · first at
    Cited as an example of a well-regarded pollster whose Iowa poll in 2024 dramatically missed, used to discuss polling challenges
    I got like a text from a friend saying, Have you heard about this Iowa poll? There's a rumor that like Ann Selzer, the dame or don of Iowa polling, right? who had predicted Barack Obama's big win in Iowa caucus in 2008,.
  • Ken Paxton — Person · Referenced Republican incumbent with vulnerabilities · 3 mentions · first at
    Cited as a weak Republican incumbent whose legal/personal issues create opportunities for Democratic challengers
    I'm not sure if James Talibrico is everybody's cup of tea but like he is able to take advantage of Ken Paxton's many sins so forth, right? in North Carolina Roy Cooper was a strong recruit from Schumer and company.
  • Susan Collins — Person · Referenced incumbent senator / Republican · 3 mentions · first at
    Her historical tendency to outperform polls is cited as a reason to be cautious about Maine's result
    Democrats' concern about Maine a little bit. 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.
  • Mary Peltola — Person · Referenced incumbent / candidate (Alaska) · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a Democrat in Alaska who does not do much national press yet is performing competitively in polls
    In Alaska, I Roy Cooper, right? It seems like they're Peltola is a big one. I'm not sure that an average Democrat would be in a toss-up. She's, a slight favorite in that race, actually.
  • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Person · Referenced progressive leader · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an example of progressive talent within the Democratic Party who shapes the party's direction and talent pool.
    But when I look at the Democratic talent right now and I think about, on the left people like Zephyr Teachout and Abdul El-Sayed and AOC who are hugely talented. Like I think El-Sayed.
  • Sherrod Brown — Person · Referenced Democratic senator / example · 3 mentions · first at
    Cited as a long-time populist Democratic senator; used as an example of candidate type and incumbency strength
    Populist and you know very well, but Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Jon Ossoff is just like I wouldn't say Georgia's a red state anymore, but Jon Ossoff is just like relentlessly disciplined figure.
  • Chuck Schumer — Person · Referenced political actor / party leader · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned when discussing Democratic recruitment and strategy for Senate races
    He is able to take advantage of Ken Paxton's many sins so forth, right? in North Carolina Roy Cooper was a strong recruit from Schumer and company. Democrats have the strategy you of trying to nominate.
  • John Fetterman — Person · Referenced Senate race example · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an example of a 2022/2024 race where polls misread the electorate in a particular fashion (Oz closing gap after stroke) and the eventual result.
    2022 similar. In fact, there were a couple of races that were high-profile, like the Fetterman race in Pennsylvania, where polls showed Oz.
  • Barack Obama — Person · Referenced political figure / influence · 1 mention · first at
    Likely a historical reference tied to campaign dynamics
    Selzer, the dame or don of Iowa polling, right? who had predicted Barack Obama's big win in Iowa caucus in 2008, would have a poll coming out showing Kamala Harris winning, I think, by three points in Iowa. Every other poll of Iowa.
  • George W. Bush — Person · Historical comparative example · 3 mentions · first at
    Referenced to draw an analogy about lame-duck presidencies (Bush after 2006) and how a bad midterm can produce a super lame duck president.
    If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era.
  • Roger Marshall — Person · Referenced Republican politician / example · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an example of a weak or problematic Republican candidate in a discussion about how candidate quality interacts with election tides (Kansas/Senate context).
    Roger was given a real I know the guy, he's one of the he's a tough guy and all, but he's also high quality, and he's a fine person.
  • Trey Jackson — Person · Referenced Democratic nominee (Maine) · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as the Democratic nominee in Maine who is competitive against Susan Collins
    Troy Jackson, who's the Democratic nominee now, is ahead of Susan Collins by a bit. I think people are nervous about that race because Collins tends to.
  • Kamal Harris — Person · Referenced political figure / comparative example · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced in a story about polling surprises (Ann Selzer Iowa poll) and as the 2020/2024 vice presidential candidate whose polling performance was discussed historically.
    Had predicted Barack Obama's big win in Iowa caucus in 2008, would have a poll coming out showing Kamala Harris winning, I think, by three points in Iowa. Every other poll of Iowa had been Trump plus nine or something like that, right?
  • Janet Mills — Person · Maine political figure · 1 mention · first at
    Maine race context is present but attribution needs confirmation
    Fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee, and instead it's going to be Grand Planter.
  • Jocelyn Benson — Person · Referenced candidate (Michigan governor) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a benchmark for candidate performance in Michigan, used to compare other Democratic candidates' polling performance there.
    There hasn't been a lot of polling in Maine. Michigan, look, I'm one of those people who says that other things held equal, that a moderate candidate able to do better than a.
  • Peggy Flanagan — Person · Referenced running candidate / lieutenant governor (Minnesota) · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a Democratic candidate in Minnesota and part of discussion about state-level incumbency issues
    That's a lot of it. I think a lot of it also, if you look at a state like Minnesota where Peggy Flanagan is ahead by three and a half or four points. It's not by nine or 10, which the states where you have.
  • Governor Tim Walz — Person · Referenced former or current governor (Minnesota) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an unpopular incumbent whose approval rating influences Minnesota races and candidate decisions
    I think Minnesota is the clearest example of this because Tim Walz's approval rating is 17 points underwater or something to the point where he was going to run for another term and didn't. So, that's kind of like ground.
  • Hillary Clinton — Person · Referenced political figure / historical election example · 1 mention · first at
    Used as part of the context about Democrats' historical polling and election-night disappointments; a comparative reference to prior high-profile losses.
    Because it, Hillary Clinton and and Joe Biden.
  • Pete Buttigieg — Person · Referenced Democratic figure / example of elder-millennial talent · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as part of a cohort of younger Democratic leaders ("elder millennial talent") reshaping the party.
    Mayor Pete's got a little bit Mayor Pete, yeah, Pete Buttigieg is another kind of elder millennial talent I would add to this.
  • Abdul El-Sayed — Person · Referenced candidate (Michigan) · 7 mentions · first at
    Likely garbled name; Abdul El-Sayed is a known Michigan figure
    I was thinking about how uncorrelated attention and performance is right now.
  • Kirsten Gillibrand — Person · Referenced party official · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the current head of the DSCC (context in the episode) overseeing Senate candidate recruitment/strategy.
    They looked pretty bad a couple months ago, and they looked pretty bad primarily because of focus was on the fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee, and.
  • Graham Platner — Person · Referenced name (likely mis-transcribed) · 1 mention · first at
    Evidence suggests intended reference is Grand Planter rather than Graham Platner
    Primarily because of focus was on the fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee, and instead it's going to be Grand Planter.
  • Tina Kotek — Person · Referenced incumbent governor · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an example of Democratic incumbents in liberal-governed states facing tighter-than-expected polls (Oregon).
    In Oregon, we've had a lot of critiques of liberal governance, right? Tina Kotek, the incumbent, I think is only ahead by like one or two points in the polls. Kathy Hochul.
  • Kathy Hochul — Person · Referenced incumbent governor · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a Democratic incumbent expected to win re-election but possibly by a tepid margin, illustrating nuanced incumbent performance.
    Kotek, the incumbent, I think is only ahead by like one or two points in the polls. Kathy Hochul certainly looks like she'll win re-election, but maybe by a relatively tepid…
  • Charlie Baker — Person · Referenced governor example · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of a Republican governor in a traditionally Democratic state (Massachusetts) to explain governance comparisons.
    Certainly looks like she'll win re-election, but maybe by a relatively tepid margin. You haven't seen that as much in like Massachusetts, which is a classically well-governed state that's often had a Republican governor in the form of.
  • Nate Cohn — Person · Referenced analyst · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned for analytic work at The Upshot, specifically an interactive exploration of poll modeling that the hosts referenced.
    Somebody who does not like I have read analysis of these the Upshot a while back and Nate Cohn did a cool thing where they let you see like how different ways of moving the…
  • Heather Cox Richardson — Person · Referenced political commentator · 1 mention · first at
    Named as inspiration for a labeled Democratic faction ("Richard cynicism") in Nate Silver's taxonomy of Democratic factions.
    Like the factional divisions in the Democratic Party recently. I think you've you've cut Democrats into what is it? The capital L left, the abundance libs, which I guess is me.…
  • Francesca Hong — Person · Referenced progressive primary example · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an example of a progressive candidate who lost in a primary (Wisconsin), used to discuss limits of progressive success.
    A fair amount of kind of rational discretion, right? there's nothing that says that voters have to or necessarily should maximize everything based on electability, right? You're allowed to say, Well, I'm trying to calculate some.
  • Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett — Person · Referenced primary/general election example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a candidate who lost a race (implying limits to certain progressive or partisan profiles).
    I don't know that Jasmine Crockett actually is more progressive than Talarico. She's more of a partisan bomb thrower, and she lost that race.
  • Monica Lewinsky — Person · Historical reference · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as part of historical exceptions (1998 midterms) to the usual midterm pattern, used to contextualize midterm dynamics.
    Survives for decades is there is a backlash against the president's party at the midterm. Maybe a little bit bigger if a president's in his second kind of lame duck term but we…
  • John Edwards — Person · Referenced historical political example · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of political downfall (losing vice-presidential nominee) to illustrate trajectories in politics.
    The trajectory of losing vice presidential nominees, John Edwards had a rough fall from grace, for example. I Paul Ryan no longer in.
  • Paul Ryan — Person · Referenced former political figure · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an example of political figures who rapidly fell from prominence after leaving office.
    The trajectory of losing vice presidential nominees, John Edwards had a rough fall from grace, for example. I Paul Ryan no longer in.

Books & papers

  • On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything — Book · Referenced book / guest's recent work · 1 mention · first at
    Nate Silver is identified as the author of this recently published book; mentioned in episode context
    And he's the author of, most recently, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything. Nate joins me now.

Companies & orgs

  • The New York Times Magazine — Company · Publisher / platform · 1 mention · first at
    Source of episode distribution, transcript, and related coverage; host network for Ezra Klein's show
    She and The New York Times were I think tied for number one or something, right? But, that now we stand alone.
  • Substack — Company · Platform referenced / affiliation of guest · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the platform where Nate Silver publishes his newsletter (The Silver Bulletin) and as a broader reference to media distribution for writers.
    It? The capital L left, the abundance libs, which I guess is me. And then Richard cynicism, which you've named for Heather Cox Richardson, who's a substacker. And that's sort…
  • The Silver Bulletin — Company · Source of analysis · 1 mention · first at
    Nate Silver's Substack where he publishes polling analysis and forecasts referenced by him in the episode
    These days, he edits the Silver Bulletin on Substack, which puts out a ton of great analysis, polling, and election forecasts. He co-hosts the podcast Still Counting.
  • The Upshot — Company · Referenced analytical newsroom · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited as an example of analytic work on polling and voter modeling (Nate Cohn work referenced earlier in conversation).
    Somebody who does not like I have read analysis of these the Upshot a while back and Nate Cohn did a cool thing where they let you see like how different ways of moving the…
  • Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — Organization · Referenced political committee · 1 mention · first at
    Key actor in Senate race strategy
    Schumer and his team, [snorts] the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, it's under Kirsten Gillibrand right now.
  • The Economist — Company · Referenced media source · 1 mention · first at
    Cited for data linking the location of Trump voters relative to data centers and possible voting shifts.
    For these hypotheses about the heartland and the Midwest, The Economist had some data showing that like the closer that Trump voters live to data centers, the more likely they are to flip and vote Democratic in this election.

Concepts & topics

  • Democratic Party — Concept · Primary political actor · 46 mentions · first at
    Subject of analysis regarding candidate selection, strategy, and prospects for Senate and House gains
  • Polling error — Concept · Key argument / methodological concern · 7 mentions · first at
    Discussion centered on how polling has erred historically, potential sources of bias, and how errors could affect forecasts this cycle
  • Partisanship — Concept · Analytical factor · 2 mentions · first at
    Used to explain structural limits on electoral change and baseline voter behavior affecting polling and forecasts
    The history of American elections then the most regular trend in American elections, one of the few things that survives for decades is there is a backlash against the…
  • Gold standard of polling — Concept · Methodological concept · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as the traditional approach to polling that relied on representative sampling and standard weighting prior to repeated high-profile polling misses.
    2024. the three presidential years was kind of the death knell for the gold standard of polling, which is we're just going to go and survey people, and we'll weight to well-known census demographics, and we'll just we'll just.
  • Ranked-choice voting — Concept · Electoral mechanism referenced · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a factor that could delay results (Alaska) and influence race outcomes.
    If you had a three-point polling error, you would have a very long night where we might be waiting for ranked-choice voting in Alaska, but it's, the House is different. If Democrats were not to win the House, then.
  • Muslim Brotherhood — Concept · Issue referenced in a candidate town hall example · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as the topic of a hostile question to Abdul El-Sayed at a town hall; used as an anecdote demonstrating candidate performance under pressure.
    I was watching this video where he just like absolutely annihilates this guy who comes to one of his town halls and is Will you denounce the Muslim.

Places & events

  • 2026 United States midterm elections — Event · Core topic · 9 mentions · first at
    The episode is framed around the upcoming midterm elections and their implications for control of the House and Senate
    We are a week out from the midterm elections, and something that looked almost impossible a year ago has happened. There is a path for Democrats to win not just the House, but the.
  • Kansas — Place · Key battleground state · 10 mentions · first at
    Highlighted as a surprising competitive state where Democrats are polling well despite recent large Trump margins
    Looked possible, but then came the hard ones, states where Trump had won by double digits. People weren't really talking about Kansas, but now Kansas.
  • Florida — Place · Referenced battleground state / case study · 6 mentions · first at
    Used to illustrate regional political shifts — described as having become reliably Republican and as an example where Democrats need more conservative candidates to compete.
  • Texas — Place · Significant battleground / reference state · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as another red state where Democrats are polling competitively and where candidate quality and GOP weaknesses matter
  • Maine — Place · Senate battleground · 7 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a concerning race for Democrats (Susan Collins historically outperforms polls) and part of the map Democrats must hold/flip
  • Michigan — Place · Purple battleground state · 7 mentions · first at
    Discussed with focus on candidate quality differences (e.g., Abdul El-Sayed / Elsayed) and potential Democratic vulnerabilities
  • Iowa — Place · Battleground state · 3 mentions · first at
    Discussed as one of the red states where Democrats are polling competitively and as a place with notable polling history (Ann Selzer)
    Maybe just moving a little bit back in the other direction or maybe just not voting, right? one reason why Trump beat his polls in '24 was overperformance among like young men.
  • North Carolina — Place · Senate / gubernatorial battleground · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in relation to Roy Cooper (a strong Democratic recruit) and as part of the map Democrats need to defend or flip
    Populist and you know very well, but Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Jon Ossoff is just like I wouldn't say Georgia's a red state anymore, but Jon Ossoff is just like relentlessly disciplined figure.
  • Minnesota — Place · Referenced battleground / governance critique · 4 mentions · first at
    Used as an example of a state where Democratic governance and an unpopular incumbent (Tim Walz) may affect down-ballot races
    I think Minnesota is the clearest example of this because Tim Walz's approval rating is 17 points underwater or something to the point where he was going to run for another term and.
  • Alaska — Place · Close contest / Senate race · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a state with a competitive Senate race (Mary Peltola referenced) and potential delays from ranked-choice counting
    In Alaska, I Roy Cooper, right? It seems like they're Peltola is a big one. I'm not sure that an average Democrat would be in a toss-up. She's, a slight favorite in that race, actually.
  • Ohio — Place · Referenced battleground / example of red-to-purple shift · 1 mention · first at
    Discussed as a state Trump won by large margins in 2024 and which could become competitive with a big national swing
    So if you have an 11 point swing then it's fairly uniform all of a sudden Ohio becomes a toss-up. what I think wasn't so clear is that Democrats have actually nominated in.
  • Maine Senate race — Event · Specific contest discussed · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as a pivotal and worrisome race for Democrats due to Susan Collins' tendency to outperform polls and primary recruitment fights
    They looked pretty bad a couple months ago, and they looked pretty bad primarily because of focus was on the fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee, and instead it's going to be Grand Planter.
  • California — Place · Referenced for vote counting delays / context · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a state whose vote counting might contribute to slower final results; general context for nationwide counting
    He'll still be president for 2 more years. but the minute the election the votes are counted, might take a while because of Alaska and California and states like that, the 2028 election campaign begins.
  • Pennsylvania — Place · Referenced battleground state · 2 mentions · first at
    Cited in examples about polling (Fetterman race) and broader midwestern/pennsylvania shifts affecting national outcomes.
    This year, you see those comebacks for Democrats in the Midwest in particular in Pennsylvania, but not in Florida.
  • January 6th — Event · Historical reference · 1 mention · first at
    Used as a benchmark for Trump's approval rating being lower now than at previous crisis moments.
    Trump's approval rating is now lower than it was after January 6th, when he was I didn't realize that.
  • Georgia — Place · Referenced battleground / example · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced in the context of runoff elections and as a state that has had critical, high-profile Senate contests recently.
    Something prevented Biden from having the wipeout you might get with a 40% approval rating typically. All the runoffs including the two in Georgia, all the special elections…
  • Nebraska — Place · Referenced state / battleground discussion · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in context of Democrats' candidate strategy — noting Nebraska as a state where Democrats aligned with an independent candidate instead of running a traditional Democrat.
    Was a strong recruit from Schumer and company. Democrats have the strategy you of trying to nominate independents in kind of name only in states like Nebraska. I think both the candidates Republican and Democrat are.
  • New York, New York — Place · Referenced state · 2 mentions · first at
    Referenced when discussing places where Democrats underperformed in certain elections and to mention Kathy Hochul.
    For the first time in a while, you had very mild a depolarization. Some of the worst states that Democrats had relative to 2020 were like New York and California. younger voters of color, for example, and younger men.
  • September 11th — Event · Historical reference · 1 mention · first at
    Used as one of the rare historical exceptions to the typical midterm backlash against a president's party (2002 midterms after 9/11).
    Survives for decades is there is a backlash against the president's party at the midterm. Maybe a little bit bigger if a president's in his second kind of lame duck term but we…
  • Oregon — Place · Referenced state example · 1 mention · first at
    Used as an example of a liberal-governed state where Democratic incumbents (Tina Kotek) face closer-than-expected polls and critiques of governance.
    In Oregon, we've had a lot of critiques of liberal governance, right? Tina Kotek, the incumbent, I think is only ahead by like one or two points in the polls. Kathy Hochul.
  • Massachusetts — Place · Referenced governance comparison · 1 mention · first at
    Contrasted with other liberal states — Massachusetts cited as an example of steady governance and better political outcomes (and having had Republican governors).
    Certainly looks like she'll win re-election, but maybe by a relatively tepid margin. You haven't seen that as much in like Massachusetts, which is a classically well-governed state that's often had a Republican governor in the form of.
  • New Jersey (Jersey) — Place · Referenced comparison state · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as an example (with Virginia) where polls in odd-year elections had notable polling errors in recent cycles.
    There are also elections that are held in odd-numbered years, runoffs, things like that. In New Jersey, Virginia last year, the polls were five to 10 points low on Democrats, which is that.
  • Virginia — Place · Referenced comparison state · 1 mention · first at
    Paired with New Jersey as states where recent polling errors favored Republicans in odd-year elections, used in a methodological caution.
    There are also elections that are held in odd-numbered years, runoffs, things like that. In New Jersey, Virginia last year, the polls were five to 10 points low on Democrats…

Media & podcasts

  • Still Counting — Media · Podcast co-hosted by guest · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as Nate Silver's co-hosted podcast and part of his media presence
    These days, he edits the Silver Bulletin on Substack, which puts out a ton of great analysis, polling, and election forecasts. He co-hosts the podcast Still Counting.

Full transcript with timestamps

We are a week out from the midterm elections, and something that looked almost impossible a year ago has happened. There is a path for Democrats to win not just the House, but the Senate. So, a Senate majority for Democrats to to sort of recap this, they need to defend the competitive Senate seats that they currently hold, and then they need to flip at least four seats in states currently held by Republicans. A couple of those states had always looked possible, but then came the hard ones, states where Trump had won by double digits. People weren't really talking about Kansas, but now Kansas.

And the remarkable thing about this cycle is that Democrats are polling competitively in all of them. In a handful of those races, they're actually far ahead. 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.

The polling guru, Nate Silver. He predicted every state in the last presidential election.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, Silver. Absolutely. These days, he edits the Silver Bulletin on Substack, which puts out a ton of great analysis, polling, and election forecasts. He co-hosts the podcast Still Counting.

Trump's approval rating is now lower than it was uh after January 6th, when he was

I didn't realize that. No, it's it's you know, it's as low as it's ever been. And he's the author of, most recently, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything. Nate joins me now.

Nate Silver, welcome back to the show. Hey, Ezra. How are you, man? I'm good. I I wanted to ask, I didn't follow up when you said this to me a second ago, cuz I want to do it on air.

You said to me, looking a little far away in your eyes, that this election feels momentous to you. I've you a long time, you don't usually say things like that. So, what feels momentous?

If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era. I think.

Um he'll still be president for 2 more years. Um but the minute the election the votes are counted, might take a while because of Alaska and California and states like that, the 2028 election campaign begins. And if Trump has a bad night as polls show, then he's a super lame duck, right? You might draw an analogy to um to Bush after 2006. Um and like part of what people understandably are having trouble believing in the polls, that 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 three quarters 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 you I think you might expect it to be along with the economy the biggest issues of 2028.

I was thinking as you said some of that about the conversations I had about the election a year ago.

Yeah. And a year ago the conversation was Democrats will probably win the house. And the Senate, I mean, never say never.

Yeah. But no. And the the the reason was that to win back the Senate, Democrats were going to need to win in a number of places where Trump had won by more than 10 points. And given everything we know about partisanship in modern America, that wasn't going to happen. So, you know, when we're talking, it's about 2 weeks before the election right now. It'll be less by the time this airs. Democrats are at a 70 plus percent chance of winning the Senate in your model and not just winning the Senate but possibly winning like beyond that.

Kansas has been something of a surprise. Why? What happened? So, I think a couple of things happened and some of them have to do with expectations maybe being miscalibrated. Um you know, after 2024 there was talk of a I guess permanent conservative vibe shift. Um that Democrats were on their back heels and Biden had failed and wokeness

How's that idea that it'd be permanent? Yeah, I mean if you look at the history of American elections then the most regular trend in American elections, one of the few things that survives for decades is there is a backlash against the president's party at the midterm. Maybe a little bit bigger if a president's in his second kind of lame duck term but you know, we can recite the exceptions on one hand. 1998 um after Monica Lewinsky, 2002 after September 11th. That's about it. 2022 Biden had a relatively gentle thumping in the midterm compared to what you might expect based on his approval rating. Um So, you know, look, in the average midterm the environment shifts by 7 and 1/2 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 then it's fairly uniform all of a sudden Ohio becomes a toss-up. Um what I think wasn't so clear is that Democrats have actually nominated in most important races pretty good candidates and were lucky enough to face weaker Republican candidates, right? Um I'm not sure if James Talibrico 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 you of trying to nominate independents in kind of name only in states like Nebraska. I think both the candidates Republican and 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 person climate moves 11 points toward Democrats, so that's R plus two. And then is Ken Paxton below average enough to turn R plus two into D plus two? Well, that's the math, right? And that's kind of That's a logical enough story.

So, one question that raises for me is Schumer and his team, [snorts] the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, it's under Kirsten Gillibrand right now. They looked pretty bad a couple months ago, and they looked pretty bad primarily because of focus was on the fight that they waged and lost in Maine to make Janet Mills the nominee, and instead it's going to be Grand Planter. Grand Planter imploded.

Yeah. Uh Troy Jackson, who's the Democratic nominee now, you know, is ahead of Susan Collins by a bit. I think people are nervous about that race because Collins tends to outperform her polling, and it's not that, you know, wide of a gap. But if you're looking over the the range of states, do they look pretty good? I mean, Turk in Iowa, you know, Peltola in in Alaska, I I Roy Cooper, right? It seems like they're

Peltola is a big one. I'm not sure that an average Democrat would be in a toss-up. She's, you know, a slight favorite in that race, actually.

Um 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 when races for 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 candidate able to 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, Elsayed's ahead by three or three and a half or something, right?

Again, that, you know, there is a four or a 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 Elsayed is a is a good candidate, right? He's very Michigan in certain ways, right? He in kind of a Zoran-esque way um doesn't present to I mean, he kind of is a bro, right? It's an interesting contrast to like Francesco Hong or somebody. And there are gendered parts to 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.

One of the things that has been interesting to me looking at at the polls, and and people have commented on this, this is not my original observation, is it Democrats seem to be overperforming more in redder states.

Yes. So, they look better than you would think in a Texas, a Kansas, an Iowa, maybe. Like a little bit less good in like a Michigan, a Minnesota. You know, and it kind of goes on like in the blue states, right? Is there something to this? And and if so, what do you make of it?

Well, that's what I think makes Democrats nervous because it's the red states, especially in the heartland, where um the polling overperformance has been concentrated in in some of these recent elections. At the same time, the story does make sense on a couple of levels, right? Um number one, gas and diesel prices.

Um if you look at where diesel fuels are consumed, not usually by passenger vehicles, but by agriculture, trucking, petroleum, home heating oils, right? It's all kind of the colder Midwestern states where a lot of the battlegrounds are concentrated as it happens this year. 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 a 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 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 joined the Trump coalition like Hispanics, working-class whites, maybe just moving a a little bit back in the other direction or maybe just not voting, right? You know, one reason why Trump beat his polls in '24 was overperformance among like young men. Um the one group you do not want to rely on to turn out in a midterm is usually young men.

[snorts] So, I I feel like there's another story you could tell and I'd be curious how this rates for you, which is that it actually has to do potentially with candidate quality on both sides. So, in redder states, Democrats have been, I would say, more rigorously following a view that they need more moderate candidates. So, you think of like Adam Hamilton in in Kansas, um Sherrod Brown is like a long-time populist and you know very well, but Roy Cooper in North Carolina, um Jon Ossoff is just like I mean, I wouldn't say Georgia's a red state anymore, but Jon Ossoff is just like relentlessly disciplined figure.

Nebraska with Ossoff who's actually running as an independent. I wouldn't say Democrats chose him, but obviously Democrats are uh aligned, I think, and excited about his candidacy and didn't run a Democrat against him. 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 Plunder who was also a more left candidate. Obviously you have Bill Sayed in Michigan, the more left candidate won. In Minnesota, the more kind of left candidate won 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 then as you go down to where Democrats felt more comfortable and could take more risk, they're taking more risk in trading away some of the possible gains. Like that would be the moderation wins thesis of like what we're seeing.

Well, in Florida is a state where you had a DSA candidate that isn't on anyone's math cuz, you know, she's now trailing by six or seven or eight points, which isn't that bad for Florida, but like but there you see the failure to select a a, you know, you need a pretty conservative Democrat probably to win in Florida at this point. 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 Flanagan is ahead by by three and a half or four points. It's not

by nine or 10, which Um you know, the states where you have these Democratic trifectas and you have critiques of Democratic governance is where you tend to see more more problems potentially. In Oregon, we've had a lot of critiques of liberal governance, right? Um Tina Kotek, the incumbent, I think is only ahead by like one or two points in the polls. Um you know, Kathy Hochul certainly looks like she'll win re-election, but maybe by a relatively tepid margin. You haven't seen that as much in like Massachusetts, which is a classically well-governed state that's often had a Republican governor in the form of Charlie Baker, right? Um but you know, I think people are there's an anti-incumbent mood.

People I think are making this implicit calculation about who has kind of power over my life, right?

not against all incumbents, right? Like, Jon Ossoff incumbent is going to stomp. I mean, from what we can tell in the polls, his challenger, um Roy Cooper, is the incumbent governor in North Carolina. Um you know, obviously was like, he's going to like win in a walk. So, it like there are Democratic incumbents who are doing just fine here.

I think Minnesota is the clearest example of this because Tim Walz's approval rating is 17 points underwater or something to the point where he was going to run for another term and and didn't. So, that's kind of like ground zero for that.

He's had a real fast fall in the rise and fall in politics. The trajectory of losing vice presidential nominees, you know, John Edwards had a rough fall from grace, for example. Um you know, I Paul Ryan uh no longer in Congress, right? It's pretty, you know, pretty rough.

That's a fair point. One One more thing for these hypotheses about the heartland and the Midwest, um The Economist had some data showing that like the closer that Trump voters live to data centers, the more likely they are to flip and vote Democratic in this election. And in the Midwest, in general, you have a a lot of data centers, right? Because you want some space, but you don't want to be too far off the grid and too rural. And so, and so that could be a a hidden factor, too.

This is what I was thinking about while I was like going through and trying to decide which of the candidates seemed to me to be over performing 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 El-Sayed, like omnipresent, right? James Taylor omnipresent. Jon Ossoff, he's not going on many national podcasts at the moment, but his clips are absolutely everywhere.

You're not seeing Sherrod Brown, right? You're not seeing um you know, very much of Mary Peltola, right? She does not do a lot of national press. You're not seeing a lot of Roy Cooper. But it 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 in my feeds and who are the candidates who are doing particularly well or poorly, um, at least in polls.

Yeah, look, some candidates have different incentives. If you want to run for president in 2028, then you probably want a somewhat somewhat higher profile potentially. I think in a case like Talarico, um, or El Sayed, they kind of inescapably feel that, um, they're going to get the maximum amount of attention anyway. But look, there's something to be said for kind of keeping a a a lower profile, too. You know, maybe Ohio's a good example of that, maybe Iowa a bit. 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 has taken place among, you know, the 15% of the electorate that's plausibly swing voters. Um, and, you know, if Democrats were to come up short in a couple of races like Iowa or Kansas, I 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.

Yeah. But we often see polling error in midterms. I mean, we see polling error in general elections, too. So, how resilient are Democratic hopes to polling error? And and how are you thinking about where the polling error might be? Like when you're building things into the model and thinking about like what you're trying to correct for, you know, you've seen Trump underestimated many a time, since Susan Collins underestimated many a time. On the other hand, the pollsters know that has happened, right? Like how do you think about the polling error dimension of this?

Look, the first thing I always tell people is that whenever you're looking at a series of polls in a Senate race or in Senate races, plural, right? Always ask yourself, what if they're off by three or four points in the same direction in every race. Um you know, Democrats have a lot of three-point leads in races like Ohio and Texas, more or less, right? Um if you had a three-point polling error, you would have a a very long night where we might be waiting for ranked-choice voting in Alaska, but it's, you know, the House is different. If Democrats were not to win the House, then there would be profound questions about what's going on with the polling and in some ways what's going on with the with the country, too.

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 perfectly true in in midterms? Have polling errors been consistently against Democrats?

It has not been true in the two midterms under in the Trump era. I guess 2018 was under Trump and there polls were, you know, one of the most accurate years for polling ever. 2022 similar. In fact, there were a couple of races that were high-profile, like the Fetterman race in Pennsylvania, where polls showed Oz closing the gap after Fetterman's stroke, right? And then Fetterman won by a pretty solid, I think, four or five points or something like that, right? But overall, polls were quite accurate. There are also elections that are held in odd-numbered years, runoffs, things like that. In New Jersey, Virginia last year, the polls were five to 10 points low on on Democrats, which is that one of the biggest polling errors we've seen in a well-polled, you know, general election. Um So, yeah. Uh 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 knell for the gold standard of polling, which is like, we're just going to go and survey people, and and we'll weight to well-known census demographics, and we'll just we'll just trust the data. The Ann Selzer poll in Iowa,

which I mean, she was I mean, she was literally the highest-rated pollster. She and The New York Times were like, I think tied for number one or something, right? Um But, that

now we stand alone. Yeah. So, say what happened with Ann Selzer, cuz maybe some people are emotionally scarred, and some people have no idea what we're talking about.

Yeah, what was it It was the weekend before the election, right? And I had like some dinner plans on Saturday, then I got like a text from a friend saying, "Have you heard about this Iowa poll? There's a rumor that like Ann Selzer, the um kind of, you know, dame or don of Iowa polling, right? Um who had predicted Barack Obama's big win in Iowa caucus in in 2008, would have a poll coming out showing Kamala Harris winning, I think, by three points in Iowa. Every other poll of Iowa had been Trump plus nine or something like that, right? Um And our model was pretty skeptical. You don't usually want to bet against Ann Selzer, 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 by 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 then Trump Trump insanely sued the paper as if like, the publishing a poll where he um was losing was defamation.

Yeah, it's never clear what the incentives are supposed to be for this stuff. But, let's talk on this polling thing for a minute though, to Let's Let's get in the weeds methodologically for a minute. Because I find whenever we start discussing or I start thinking about how what is happening in polls to massage demographics to kind of answer all these problems of people don't pick up the phone or, you know, we're using online sampling and we don't know who will turn out. I I feel very disoriented. What do you do? Like what what are the pollsters doing?

And I should say I'm I'm not a pollster. I'm a forecaster, right? But I that distinction in some ways is becoming blurrier, right?

Yeah, that's what I mean. They feel like they're forecasting. I think the upshot of the Ann Selzer thing is that um everyone knows that a poll is kind of almost like a mini model with polling flavored inputs. And I'm not sure what the right metaphor is. Like people want to make it like it's some broken gauge that like your 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 iterative 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 pollster for being wrong and for being wrong. So the pollsters have pretty good incentives to correct for these problems potentially. Um but you know, but sometimes when I know it sounds kind of tautological, right? When there are these big wave change elections or elections that are kind of unexpected, then sometimes pollsters lowball them. In 1994, for example, it looked like a relatively bad year for Clinton that turned into a terrible year, right? You can also look at a year like 2014 as a parallel that worried about if I were Republicans because that's the year when the polls were never great for Obama, but you had a really really big differential turnout where Democrats just weren't that enthusiastic at the time Obama was relying on more of a multi-ethnic younger coalition that

traditionally does not turn out at the same rates in midterms and that turned into a nine-seat loss, a total route for Democrats in in the Senate.

Yeah, I mean this is I think what I'm asking you that we know the midterm electorate is going to be different than the presidential electorate that some people are going to be more motivated to vote than others. I mean, are they just polling people and saying, "Do you think you're going to vote?" And and and that's like the big screen and just for somebody who does not like I have read analysis of these the the Upshot a while back and and Nate Cohn did a cool thing where they let you see like how different ways of moving the data around would give you a very different result on the same like underlying poll data, but is there like a a kind of conventional thing they're doing to compose a midterm electorate that is going to be really different in 2026 than it was in 2022?

Yeah, so one difference, if you ask people, "Are you going to vote? How enthusiastic are you about voting?" that produces a very Democratic sample. Um other pollsters try to predict whether people will vote based on other types of data, right? Um and and those techniques tend to produce more modest results for Democrats. One thing you can watch in the early voting data, which generally I advise people not to do, but who is winning among like lower propensity voters, right? People who have who have voted in no more than one out of the past three elections counting counting midterms. Um those low propensity voters appear to be quite Democratic so far. It may [clears throat] be probably will to some extent probably will cast their vote by election day anyway and they'll and they'll catch up, right? But but if not, if Democrats low propensity voters turn out and the GOP doesn't, then that's

where you might see a polling error that underestimates Democrats. So, if Republicans end up having a better than expected night, what do you think will have ended up being the explanation for it?

I mean, look, I think there are two versions of this. Like, one is just Democrats lose all the toss-ups, right? Talarico loses by a point, Jackson loses by a point, maybe Elsayed wins by a recount. Sherrod Brown wins, but Turrek loses by three points. Like, that's very feasible in the kind of thick part of the probability distribution. And then and then I think, you know, it some questions about the polls, but that's kind of that's kind of even in line. We'll say, "Okay, partisanship is still a really strong. Maybe pollsters and Democrats got their hopes up a little bit too high to think you could win any of these, you know, R+12 states that have been R+8." Then, yeah, but we just kind of reach the point where we ran out of like oxygen climbing up that that big red hill, right? 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 bec- not cuz 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 be off 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 lot of outsized narrative importance. Talarico feels to me like it's got a lot of narrative importance to people, you know, possibility of Democrats being competitive in Texas, a sort of return of a religious left. Abdul El-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 the Muslim Brotherhood?" And I mean El-Sayed, who's a very, very, very smart guy, leaves this guy like a smoking like crater on the floor.

Yeah. So, it feels like there's going to be a lot of attention on how he specifically does. You know, you've been very attentive to like the factional divisions in the Democratic Party recently. I think you've you've cut Democrats into what is it? The capital L left, the abundance libs, which I guess is me. And then Richard cynicism, which you've named for Heather Cox Richardson, who's you know, a substacker. And that's sort of the big like resistance libs, no kings kind of thing. But I'm curious how you think different forms of the election might end up being interpreted and shaping the the Democratic Party and its strategies.

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 from the state-by-state results, right? If people do these ecological analysis afterward, they find, "Hey, yeah, in states where there was a data center construction, then Republicans underperformed by by three points." I mean, that might be important as well. Yeah, if

[snorts] if Elissa 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 Elissa wins by four, right? Maybe nerds like me are like, "Well, he had a below average wins above 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 weren't nerds tend not to pay much attention to the margin as long as it seems unambiguous and clear.

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. Francesca Hong was ultimately rejected in Wisconsin. I don't know that Jasmine Crockett actually is more progressive than Talarico. She's more of a partisan bomb thrower, and she lost that that race. Um

But she wasn't a DSA person. That That That was not her her profile in politics.

I think I think Democratic voters have exercised a fair amount of kind of rational discretion, right? I mean, there's nothing that says that voters have to or necessarily should maximize everything based on electability, right? You're allowed to say, "Well, I'm trying to calculate some like expected value score of What is the chance this candidate wins times how much good would they do for the issues that I that I care about, right?" Although, I will tell you one thing, um the amount of Democratic infighting really dropped off after these races in Maine, Michigan,

Yeah, primaries just create a lot of I mean, and it's going to go up again when the 2028 primaries hit.

to be the only thing anyone's talking about for a year and a half or something.

say and and this is like a step I got to have. Uh one narrative that I think is going to be true, particularly if you have, you know, a bunch of these players win, is the Democrats are coming to an an era of like elder millennial talent. That I apologize to my Democratic office holder Gen X friends. I think like the like the late boomer and then um like the Gen X class in the Democratic Party ended up like pretty caught between political eras and communication eras. But when I look at the Democratic talent right now and I think about, you know, on the left people like Zephyr Teachout and Abdul El-Sayed and AOC who are hugely talented. Like I think El-Sayed will 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. We think about Talarico who like is like really a

star. Jon Ossoff 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 some things to me seems to be changing that is actually across the different factions. Like they all now have stars in a way that I wouldn't have said was true a few years ago.

I think some of this is 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 go to college and the NBA.

And who is Steph Curry in this analogy? Obama, yeah. I like in some ways I mean yeah, El Sayed and Ocasio-Cortez for instance are very both influenced by Obama in different ways.

You know, Mayor Pete's got a little bit Mayor Pete, yeah, Pete Buttigieg is another kind of elder millennial talent I would add to this.

Um but like I think like in some ways what happened to Democrats after 2012 was kind of weird, right? Where Hillary lost to Obama and Bill Clinton became president in 1992, right? And for some reason it's like, well, it's it's Hillary's turn now, right? And and she had a very competitive primary against Bernie Bernie Sanders and prevailed, but like that in some ways felt like um a return to a different Democratic party than the party that Obama was trying to craft, right? And then and then Biden who was kind of expressly chosen by Obama because he was old and not seen as a threat to run for president himself kind of won amid this like flight to safety and then but like um I don't know. Obviously some of this were competitive nomination processes, right? But it feels like some trajectory got interrupted in the Democratic party and and maybe now it's being restored, I suppose a little bit.

So we've been talking a lot about the Senate and the Senate is like the charismatic megaphone 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. Obviously the House is not a binary outcome. It really matters if Democrats end up with 228 members of the house, 235, 240, 250. So, tell me about what the modeling and the polling seems to suggest about where Democrats might end up. And, you know, like the kind of sensitivity of that in both directions.

Yeah, so one of the big consequences of all this redistricting as well as voter self-sorting is that you have far fewer swing districts than than you once did, right? Also, Democrats had a relatively good 2024 in the house. I mean, there was still some doubt on election night whether Democrats might actually win the house in '24 despite Harris having lost. Um so, you know, even the models, even our model that has them with a 90% plus chance of winning the house, that only translates {quote} {unquote} into I think 22 seats or something on average. Um and

Which like we've seen, you know, wave elections that are like 40, 50 seats. Right. I mean, it was it 63 in in 2010, for example?

Which was like the big the very big one. Or 41 or something in 2018. Um you know, Republicans did gain a few seats from the redistricting process, mostly in the mostly one where they just cut out a majority-minority district, right? So, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, and some of those states. The Alabama district is actually kind of close in the polling. Um but that's like a clean three seats swiped out from Democrats, right? 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, DeSantis kind of drew a riskier map that was optimized more for presidential years and would have a lot of toss-up to lean R districts in an environment like this one. Now, in Florida, Republicans have I 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 in

You mean in in view of Florida. I have never read what was to me a fully satisfying explanation of how Florida became so red. But, Florida has gone, as you say, from being a canonical swing state to more of a Republican readout than Texas. I mean Ron DeSantis barely won um his first race for governor. How did Florida become so red?

I think it's 75% migration and 25% kind of a death spiral for the Democratic Party that might be self-reinforcing. I mean, with the migration um Florida is a unique place in offering blue state amenities, but without

without as many libs. You know what I mean? And that attracts, you know, A it has always attracted older people. Um but yeah, I think you have a lot of like political self-selection. In most states, 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. This year, you see those comebacks for Democrats in the Midwest in particular in Pennsylvania, but not in Florida. Florida just keeps getting redder at the registration level.

Okay, so so that's like the center of house polling, but but we've talked about a two-to-three or four-point polling error like not being unusual. Given incumbency advantages in the house, given redistricting

Yeah. is this the kind of thing where if you get a three-point error and it turns out Democrats did better than expected by three points

Yeah. where all of a sudden a bunch of the redistricting falls apart and Democrats like have this huge wave election and actually are winning, you know, 40 seats in the house and they have this like huge majority under a speaker Hakeem Jeffries?

Yeah, no, it is a little bit asymmetric, right? And people love the flood and maritime metaphors, but but um if the wave gets really big, then one thing that happens is it inundates candidates who have not been prepared for that type of disaster, potentially. I mean, I think the best example of this is like actually in in the Senate with Roger Marshall, where I have um

In Kansas. In Kansas, right? I have family that lives in Overland Park, Kansas, big in Kansas and Missouri politics, and like, "Boy, Roger Marshall's a really bad candidate, right?" I'm like, you know, it's Kansas. It's I'm sorry, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Um but um but if you're caught up in this tide, and like Kansas, you know, it's elected Chris Davis to Congress.

Sorry, you saw the thing where Trump then went to defend Roger Marshall? Oh, no, yeah.

And it was like, "Yeah, I mean, the reason he had to go after his candidates, his his patients for payment in that way, people trying to paint him as he used like an anti-Semitic slur."

Roger was given a real I know the guy, he's one of the he's a tough guy and all, but he's also high quality, and he's a fine person. And he was given a bum rap because he was mandated by law to request strongly money owed from patients. You're not allowed not to do it. You have to by law go after those people. And they made it like, "Oh, he was some kind of a type guy."

There are times when I wonder whether Trump really cares whether the GOP holds the Senate or not, right? I mean, he hasn't done a whole lot through Congress. It's mostly been through executive power, right?

And I think Cornyn would win Texas. Trump easily could have just ended that primary and made Cornyn the the winner, right? That that was completely within Trump's power, and Republicans would be in a stronger position in Texas and less likely to lose the Senate if that had happened. 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 the 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, then no.

Look, Republicans are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place in elections where Trump himself is the dominant figure but not himself on the ballot, right? That entire tranche of elections of 2018 if you kind of want to count 2022 as well where something prevented Biden from having the wipeout you might get with a 40% approval rating typically. All the runoffs including the two in Georgia, all the special elections, Supreme Court races, ballot initiatives, all that kind of stuff. It's all gone really badly for for Republicans 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 going to 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 mid $4 per gallon, more here in California and places like that, less in some other places.

You know, you obviously keep a close track of Trump's approval rating. Yeah. What is the story of its decline? It's dropped quite a bit since he took office a second time. Has that drop been steady or has it been like discontinuous around certain events?

If you want to like model it statistically, then you know, it's quite correlated with gas prices, frankly.

There's also a time trend, right? In general, you see it jump up and down a little bit based on gas prices and kind of economic anxiety. It dropped a lot during liberation day. Was that April 2025? Concern about tariffs. Um But it's been a pretty steady decline and I think people kind of learned some incorrect lessons from the first Trump term, right? Um when voters felt like the economy was good and objectively it was pretty good in the first 3 years of Trump. That just kind of serves as like a a halo that allows you to say, "Oh, Democrats are complaining about democracy this and democracy that and and race and xenophobia and whatever else, right? But you got more money in your paycheck. You have a good job. The stock market's up.

You You know, houses are appreciating in value, right?" And now the people question all those things, it makes the culture war stuff seem kind of desperate and silly. 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 the 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 80/20 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.

Well, I I could give two, you know, I could give a substantive and a less substantive reason for Trump. I mean, one is that I think he actually is persuaded we're in a military and geopolitical and economic race with China. I mean, he as he likes to say, whoever wins AI wins. And the other is that if the AI boom, if something shift sentiment then the one economic indicator Trump has that is looking good for him, which is the stock market,

Yep. collapses. And then he's got nothing, right? Then you got high interest rates, you got terrible debt, you got, you know, anemic growth, you 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 now. it's like 400 some million. Yeah, it's And it's hard to even know if we know everything that's gone in. And so, you know, he may also not want to like alienate his tech right, um, you know, even tech center constituency.

I think that's a lot of it. I think I think you know, I'm not a I'm not a Trump whisperer, right? It does seem like the one thing that consistently motivates him is that he doesn't like seeing red arrows on the stock market ticker. Um, uh, you know, you've seen increasing amounts of investor anxiety about about maybe not I think the AI bubble argument's getting more sophisticated, right? It's like

[sighs] how can we land this plane without instrumentation we've tested before on this kind of narrow little strip of runway, right? You know, you've also had, just in the past week or two you 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

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

I mean this is you were using the Bush '06 analogy a few minutes ago. You know, you talked about sort of Bush as a super lame duck in one and I was thinking as you said that though that the final two years of Bush's term were tremendously eventful um leading up to a global financial meltdown at the end of it. And yeah, I look at Trump and I look at the economy and I look at the geopolitical situation and what I see is risk everywhere. Right? If you told me we were going to have like a massive recession or stock market correction or correlated financial crisis, you know, next years I'd say yeah, that totally tracks to me.

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 that attacks like you know, an American AI swarm attacks China or 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.

And he'll be 82 years old by by the end of the term too. Um look, in some ways Trump was pretty lucky in the first three years of his first term in the White House that kind of not nothing kind of literally or figuratively blew up, right? It wasn't like Biden where Ukraine happened under Biden's watch and Gaza happened under Biden's watch, right? You know, if Republicans lose the Senate, probably one of the first people that should be blamed is Pete Hegseth, I think, right? Um, I don't think there are very many people who would serve as 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. But but it's the other way around. I'm not saying you're saying anything different here, but Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to go to war in Iran. And Donald Trump had named Pete Hegseth, a Fox and Friends correspondent, to be Defense Secretary because he wanted somebody in that position who had never under any circumstance say no to him. Like, I think it's very likely Hegseth pretty quickly gets the ax after the midterms or at some point. But he's very unlikely to be replaced by a like a thoughtful, commanding general who has a personal stature to say no to Donald Trump, right? It's not going to be They're not going to bring back Jim Mattis.

And that has I mean, you've seen this on tariffs, right? Gary Cohn, the um Goldman Sachs head who was the NEC director, National Economic Council, in Trump's first term, would not have presided over this tariffs regime. He just would not have. Trump and his team wanted to come in and make sure Trump would be surrounded by people who always said yes. Um, what does this all look like if the stock market goes into freefall? Because it turns out AI is a not ready for primetime 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 2 years and begin like going into like high-tilt strategies to use one of your poker terms, and Trump older and surrounded by Pete Hegseths.

Yeah. Um, it makes me anxious to to be honest, right? I mean, I the AI thing alone is a different episode, right? Probably makes me anxious, which is like, okay, the future could look very different um 5 years from now, 3 years from now, right? Um if you're in middle age, right? You want to kind of think, oh, I can keep doing what I'm doing do it for another 20 or 30 years, and then whatever retire. And now it's like, oh, who the knows what's going to, you know, but like but Trump is not the ideal president to have

at the helm when you're on the verge of uh I don't think we're necessarily on the verge of a singularity, right? But like with perhaps the most important technological advancement in in decades to put it modestly, right? I'm not sure that's the person that you want to have in charge is an 82-year-old Donald Trump.

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

I think money is generally overrated in politics, all right? Qualify that by saying for any high-profile race. So, Senate governor, um certainly president, where you encounter diminishing returns if you were to look at the frontier of like the House map where maybe name recognition and visibility is an issue, if you were to look at like state legislatures, those are really important, especially now that state legislatures and governors play into the now apparently every 2 years prediction that we have. The other thing too is that like when you were 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. Right before the 2024 election, you published a piece. You can correct me if I'm wrong about some part of this. Where you basically said, my model says Kamala Harris is going to win.

Yeah. And my gut says Donald Trump is going to win. Right? I think you did this pre-election.

Yeah. This is a pre-registered take. Yeah. Do you Is your gut in any way different than your model this year?

Well, what I talked about in that piece is that like like it would be more embarrassing for the industry, meaning pollsters, forecasters, pundits, whatever, etc. If once again Republicans beat their polls in the Midwest, right? So like emotionally I feel some need to hedge against that. And yeah, I'm a little skeptical of

of Kansas maybe and Iowa and that tier of states. What's different though is that like So in '24, um I had an exercise where I'm like, here are I think it would 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 only come up with like four or five things, right? This year that's the reverse. The fundamental conditions feel terrible for Republicans, right? You have the second-term 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 guys, 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 than 2018, right? And if that's true, that means like Democrats win the popular vote by the house by for by like 10 or 11 points or something. And so my my my gut's really contradictory, right? I worry more about the state polls being wrong than the national race being being miscalibrated.

I think that's a good place to end. Always a fun little question. What are a few books you'd recommend to the audience?

Okay, actually this is tough because I'm a frequent listener to this show and some of my recommendations have been taken by other

No, that's good. That's when I feel like the audience takes them more seriously when there are uh repeat recommendations.

Well, I picked three slightly weird ones. So, um the first one is um, The Rise and Fall of American Growth by the economic historian Robert Gordon. It was written in 2016. Um, I remember kind of reading this book when I was, um, in Paris at a poker tournament in Paris, as one does, right? Um, and like Paris is so timeless, and meanwhile this was like the week when the US went to war with Iran. It was the week when the Department of Defense and Anthropic got in a big fight. Things just felt like they were accelerating.

read this book recently? I read it recently. Yeah, yeah, um, and the kind of juxtaposition between like the timelessness of Paris and, um, this acceleration due to AI and other things got me kind of like thinking a little bit about like economic history and like and but anyway, Gordon's book talks about a couple of things. One, the thesis, which is implied by the title, is that actually the huge gains that the United States made came between like roughly 1870 and 1970. It's also reminded that like the, um, the Industrial Revolution, cuz this is kind of what the AI optimistic case is, right? Well, the Industrial Revolution worked out okay and wound up making people live longer and wealthier, right?

For many years, the Industrial Revolution produced terrible living conditions for for people, right? Where you had like, you know, Dickens and you had like child labor, you know, the most vivid image I have is he talks about like how much like horse manure there was on American streets, right? You didn't have like indoor plumbing and so, um, so it's a fascinating book. It's very detailed. It's not like a beat 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 like Europe has kind of opted for lower GDP growth, but arguably, um, higher quality of life. Anyway, it's the best time to talk 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 poker player in the world. She developed, um, uh, uh, 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 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 in relationships because I think it might feel weird or whatever else, but like he'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 I So, I read a lot of like poker strategy books, like probably not appropriate for the Ezra 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 old-time like Texas Roadhouse gamblers. It's very well-written, a very maybe slightly overwritten, like kind of magazine-y 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 clichés and captures this part of the world that I'm fascinated by very well.

That book sounds great. Nate Silver, thank you very much. Thank you, Ezra. Mhm.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Nate Silver On What the Polls Say — And What His Gut’s Telling Him | The Ezra Klein Show"?

Ezra Klein (Guest), Nate Silver (Guest).

What is "Nate Silver On What the Polls Say — And What His Gut’s Telling Him | The Ezra Klein Show" about?

Nate Silver discusses the evolving midterm landscape, arguing Democrats have a plausible path to a Senate majority and evaluating how current polls stack up against political realities, including which races are most competitive and the reliability of polling near Election Day. He also shares insights from his forecasting approach and risk assessment in this volatile cycle.

What is mentioned in this The Ezra Klein Show episode?

76 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Democratic Party, 2026 United States midterm elections, Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, Donald Trump, Polling error. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Nate Silver On What the Polls Say — And What His Gut’s Telling Him | The Ezra Klein Show"?

The episode runs 59 min; the transcript is about 11,044 words in 137 timestamped sections.

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About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 9, 2026.