MARGIN OF ERROR

Nate Silver Warns of Hidden Catch in Democrats’ Poll Leads

Silver has been one of the most optimistic forecasters for Democrats, but he’s flagging a caveat lurking beneath the polls.

Election data guru Nate Silver is warning Democrats that there is a hidden catch in positive polling figures less than a week before Election Day.

Silver says that Democratic leads in crucial Senate races are small enough to fall within the range of statistical uncertainty, noting they “are all just a normal-sized polling error away from flipping.”

He writes in his Silver Bulletin Substack that the all-important races favoring Democrats, like in Texas and Maine, “are all just a normal-sized polling error away from flipping.”

Silver’s model shows that, in Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico leads Texas attorney general Ken Paxton by just 2.5 points. In Ohio, former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown leads GOP Sen. Jon Husted by 3 points. In Alaska, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola leads GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan by 3.6 points. Maine’s Senate race is the tightest, with Democratic candidate Troy Jackson leading Republican Sen. Susan Collins by just 2.4 points.

Silver remains bullish on Democrats’ chances of taking both the House and Senate, pointing to Trump’s unpopularity, sky-high gas prices, strong Democratic turnout, the historical tendency for the president’s party to lose ground in midterms, and a mounting number of polls showing Democrats leading in key races.

“After today’s update, Democrats remain strong favorites to retake the House, and their Senate odds are also holding steady,” he said.

Silver, 48, spoke about the uncertainty of polling leads that are within the margin of error during a Tuesday appearance on The Ezra Klein Podcast.

“So how resilient are Democratic hopes to polling error? And how are you thinking about where the polling error might be when you’re building things into the model and thinking about what you’re trying to correct for?” Klein asked.

“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, always ask yourself: What if they’re off by three or four points in the same direction in every race?” Silver answered. “Democrats have a lot of three-point leads in races like Ohio and Texas, more or less, right? 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.”

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However, he noted that “the House is different,” saying that if Democrats lost the lower chamber, “there would be profound questions about what’s going on with the polling, and in some ways, what’s going on with the country, too.”

The New York Times surveyed political analysts, and Silver predicted to the paper that Democrats will win 240 House seats and 52 Senate seats, taking control of both chambers of Congress.

He noted that midterm waves against the president’s party are “almost the default outcome,” adding, “You might expect a bigger-than-average wave given Trump’s approval numbers, gas prices, Iran, and Epstein.”

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Erkki ForsterNight News Reporter

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