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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
I almost made an NCAA-style bracket for the Democratic candidates, decided that didn't make any sense, so here's what I came up with instead: fivethirtyeight.com/features/silve…
Basically there are 4 big messages in the Democratic primary. The candidates generally fall into one of these groups, or their messaging is incoherent. (Exception: Bernie gets away with both 1 and 3 and it mostly works fine for him.)
Also in this edition of SILVER BULLETPOINTS: Biden's polling is a bit weaker in IA and NH than nationally. It's not a huge gap, but it's a little something for other candidates to build on.
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
So, it seems clear that there's not a consensus on what "contested convention" means. I actually *thought* was definition 1 — a contested convention means multiple ballots — but lots of people think otherwise.
Here's what I think the definition *should* be, i.e. what would be most useful for journalists & other observers.

A contested convention is one in which the identity of the nominee is in doubt when the convention begins (or unexpectedly comes into doubt during the convention).
^^^ Whether you go to 2+ ballots, though easy to quantify, seems like the wrong metric. I can imagine highly contentious, uncertain conventions where nevertheless only 1 vote is taken, or perfunctory ones where the winner is ~certain but 2+ votes are taken for procedural reasons.
Read 3 tweets
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
That's not really what Biden is saying in this passage, though. He's not denying that voters are angry. He's saying he doesn't think anger is a good strategy to win the nomination and the general election.
Which, you can agree with or not, but it's a reasonably sophisticated message. And also a fairly common one that's had plenty of political success. "I know you're angry, but we need to rise above it to heal the country" is very Obamaesque, in fact.
Also, these messages are no doubt poll-tested, and the dude is 20 points ahead of anyone else in the polls. I don't want to use that as a cudgel, but our priors ought to be pretty skeptical of "actually, Biden is out of touch with the mood of the Democratic electorate" takes.
Read 3 tweets
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Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
What maybe lies at the heart of this (leaving aside any personal fandom for Sanders and/or antipathy toward Warren or whatever) is a misunderstanding of how the party nomination process really works on the part of Jacobin and certain other parts of the Sanders left.
For instance, in this fascinating article from January, @sunraysunray doesn't trust that Warren is liked by "mainstream Democratic Party policy types". Actually, that's a HUGE ASSET for her! Building a coalition is how nominations are usually won. bit.ly/2Edt9CC
In the context of Jan., where Bernie is polling at ~20% and maybe you can pretend Biden doesn't exist?, it makes more sense. But Sanders backers, with their allergy to coalition-building, have never had a good plan for how to get beyond ~25-30%. And now he's backslid to ~16%.
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

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Micah Wright
@MicahWright
A THREAD ABOUT POLLING; I used to work in politics. I studied polling extensively in college. Polling used to be something which dependably assessed the mood of the public and could be used to reliably predict the outcome of elections. That was true in 1996 when I stepped away.
You've seen this photo. It's in every high school civics textbook. This headline was the result of 1) the paper being a right-wing rag which hated Truman, 2) a typesetter strike which lengthened headline changes to several hours, & 3) bad polling methodology.
The Tribune's election wonk, Arthur Henning, relied on Gallop's survey of 3,250 voters conducted in person. Gallop selected respondents for a perfect "representative sample" of all races, creeds, and economic stratum. 12% of Americans are Poor White Catholics? 12% in the sample!
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Sara Danner Dukic
@saradannerdukic
Here is why I was asking about this earlier (@spicyfiles @lauferlaw, tell me if this makes any sense).

First, here are links to the DNC filing:
apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/po…

And the Russian response:
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
It occurred to me that perhaps by explicitly referring to the hacks as an (alleged) act of military aggression - in a court filing no less - this opens the door for a legal interpretation of all other actions stemming from it, or related to it.
My question was, “why would they even raise this subject so brazenly?”
Read 10 tweets
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Toly Rinberg
@tolyrinberg
Here's your reminder that, 2 years under Trump, state-sponsored censorship of climate info is still ongoing and pervasive across fed agencies (@EPA, @StateDept, @Interior, @USDOT, …)

Check out @andmbergman & my @NYTopinion piece and examples in THREAD: nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opi…
In Oct 2018, @USDOT, which oversees transportation, one of the largest sectors contributing to anthropogenic U.S. GHG emissions, obfuscated climate info by removing its "Climate Change Clearinghouse" page, among several others

@CNN's @Rene_MarshCNN broke: cnn.com/2018/12/14/pol…
.@EPA's removal of epa.gov/climatechange is still the largest case of online climate change censorship by a fed agency

The small amount of the site that was returned censored info about climate change. @NYTclimate's @LFFriedman on our @EnviroDGI report: nytimes.com/2017/10/20/cli…
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Ali Adair #WaveCast #WaveCastFL
@AliAdair22
⌨️Texting for GOTV (Getting Out the Vote) or for a particular #Democratic candidate is a lot of fun actually & now there are a few opportunities to text on Monday 11/26/18 for #Mississippi runoff Senate race: Mike Espy @espyforsenate OR

✍️Sign up here!!
docs.google.com/forms/d/13ugjp…
⌨️Click here to sign-up to text for the #Georgia Secretary of State runoff election on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, 11/27-11/29/18.

📱💻You can do it on your phone or PC 100% from home now (usually you meet at a location to get instructions).

docs.google.com/forms/d/1vo3A4…
📄Instead, needtoimpeach.com is posting these instructions so you can handle it without leaving your house.

😆It might take 5-10 minutes to catch on, but when you do it really is fun, easy and it makes you feel like you are really helping.

📄Instructions, p. 1 of 10👇
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Daniel Dale
@ddale8
Here's a good guide to when we might have various results tonight: fivethirtyeight.com/features/2018-…
Here's a rough guide to how tight the various competitive races are expected to be, so you know how big a deal a particular outcome is: cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-…
Here's a guide to lots of important races and questions that have gotten less attention than the House and Senate - voting rights for ex-felons in Florida, Medicaid expansion in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah, governor races, sheriff races, etc.:
Read 3 tweets
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Jane Coaston
@cjane87
Here’s a subject upon which I have been thinking and discussing with conservatives: how abortion is a weirdly complex intra-party issue for the GOP, way more than you might think.

@538politics wrote a fascinating piece on the subject: fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-a…
@538politics Now, these numbers aren’t big. But they aren’t small, and might be why @WSJ has written “reassuring” op-eds on why Kavanaugh doesn’t put Roe in jeopardy, and why a few conservative sites have been discussing this issue in a different way than you might expect.
@538politics @WSJ Via @LoConservative
Read 4 tweets

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