Our post-debate poll with Ipsos is out, and it finds voters thought Biden did well and Trump did poorly. Also hints of a *bit* of topline movement toward Biden, though most voters stuck with their initial preferences.
We asked the same voters both before and after the debate their chances of voting for Biden and Trump in a 0 to 10 scale. Not *quite* a horse race question, though close to it.
If you were to treat the 0-to-10 scale as tantamount to a 0-to-100% chance of voting for the candidate — certainly a shortcut, so don't treat this as a proper horse-race poll — this group of voters moved from Biden 50-38 pre-debate to Biden 52-37 afterward, i.e. a 3-point swing.
Much more from my colleague Laura Bronner here. Again, the big theme is the stability of the race. But based on this poll, the race doesn't seem super likely to tighten as a result of the debate, and Biden's lead plausibly could widen.
We ran one more update, just because we don't want to have to worry about it on July 4. Trump national polling lead up slightly further to an even 3 points after a couple more national polls. natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-…
The model DOES update its STATE polling averages based on trends in national polls (and polls in other states) but it's probably being a little conservative there (i.e. it wants to see more state data); a little bit of an imbalanced ratio of national to state polls this week.
Also note the uptick for RFK Jr., which is probably best viewed as a "Sweet Meteor of Death" vote for people who are just incredibly unhappy with both their choices after the debate last week.
It's definitely one of the more fortuitous accidents of timing I've had as a writer. On Tuesday, I wrote a piece saying Democrats use "But Her Emails" to deflect legitimate criticism. And that's exactly what they've done since the special council report on Thursday...
Biden's age is not at all comparable to Hillary's emails. It is a much more important issue. He wants to be president until he is 86 years old! Voters ratioanally think it's important. I criticized #ButHerEmails early and often. This story is not the same. natesilver.net/p/not-everythi…
Although there was a fresh round this week, people have been using this ButHerEmails excuse to deflect legitimate reporting on Biden's age for months. It hasn't worked. Voters have more concerns than ever. Now he's trailing Trump *even as economic perceptions improve*. Not good.
I'M SORRY BUT YOU DID A MISINFORMATION SANDER! YOU'RE ONE OF THE BADDIES! You've routinely spread misinformation about the scientific consensus on COVID origins. The fact that you can't acknowledge this why the concept is incoherent.
Half the reason the Team Misinformation people bug me is because it's just so obvious what they're doing, taking genuinely contentious discussions and stigmatizing the positions that don't match their politics with the thinnest imaginable reeds of expert authority.
A lot of it, like denial of the *possibility* of a lab leak, is quite close to propaganda as commonly defined. It's trying to advance an agenda, it presents facts in a manipulative way, and it seeks to trigger an emotional response (by saying e.g. the lab leak is xenophobic).
🧵1/ Our biennial forecast self-review is out! There’s lots of detail in the story, please check it out. We think it’s really important to do this. It’s also one of those years where it may clear up some misconceptions. fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-o…
2/ Polls (in the aggregate) and forecasts had a good year. Polling averages did ~not~ predict a red wave. They showed a highly competitive race for the Senate and below-average (by historical standards) GOP gains in the House, though with much uncertainty.
3/ Democrats did slightly better than expected based on polls/forecasts, but really only slightly, much less than the degree to which the GOP overperformed polls in 2016 & 2020. It was a somewhat surprising year relative to historical norms, but not relative to polls.
This is cool. GOP currently leads 220-215 based on called races + races where they're currently ahead. But, quite a few are uncertain; some key ones below.
Republicans have a 59% chance of winning the Senate, according to our final Deluxe forecast. It's closer in our alternative models: R chances are 51% in the Lite (polls-only) forecast, and also 51% in Classic (polls + fundamentals but no expert ratings). projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-…
In the House, Republicans are considerably more definitive favorites: 84% in Deluxe, 82% in Classic and 75% in Lite. Still, you shouldn't round their chances up to 100%. It wouldn't require **that** large of a polling/forecaster error for the House to be competitive.