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5 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
I don't think it would be crazy—from a purely strategic standpoint, notwithstanding the health risk—for Harris to put her foot down and say leaders need to take COVID seriously and she won't debate in person until Pence is out of the quarantine period.
And by the way, from a health standpoint: we are not talking about some trivial risk. Literally half the people around Pence in this POLITICO illustration got COVID. The negative tests and lack of symptoms reduce the chance, but it's still decently high. politico.com/news/2020/10/0…
Harris is a good debater (though Pence isn't bad) and I guess you don't wanna take chances when you're 8-9 points ahead. But the public buys the message that Trump/Pence have been deeply irresponsible on COVID and one way to highlight that is by actually following the CDC rules.
I guess I'm going on a mini rant here, but this is not some borderline case. It is the very opposite of that! Pence had close personal contact per the CDC definition without masks on with like 10 people that are COVID+.
It is also unlikely that the contact ended at the ACB ceremony 9 days ago (still in the quarantine period anyway), since the White House was clearly taking COVID completely unseriously until Thursday or Friday, which is not imply that they're taking it seriously now.

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Nate Silver Profile picture
6 Oct
Related to this, but I *hate* the "this will give people a false sense of security" argument, at least when applied to measures that *really are* effective (e.g. masking, testing) though not perfect.
Let's say masks reduce transmission by 60% other things held equal, but people respond by going out and being around people 30% more often. So instead of reducing COVID spread by 60%, you reduce it by about 45-50% instead.
A couple of implications:

First, that's not a *false* sense of security. It's a *correct* sense of security and a response that indicates people are managing hard tradeoffs. I'd prefer to reserve the "false" label for "sanitization theater" interventions that have little effect.
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
30 Sep
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.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-de…
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. Image
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.
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
29 Sep
Worth reading but it's worth remembering that Trump was judged the loser of the debates by polls and actually lost quite a bit of ground to Clinton in head-to-head polls following the debates.
Clinton actually led by only 1.4 points in national polls entering the first debate, eventually got that lead back up to 6 points before it started falling again. There were other things going on in that period ("Access Hollywood") but still....

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-… Image
And the primary debates? Generally Trump did very well on the unscripted days where he completely dominated coverage. The debates were a chance for his rivals to even the score and often resulted in Trump losing a point or two in polls. He was mediocre and uneven—though not poor.
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
27 Sep
No particular instinct for how much the Trump tax news will resonate with rank-and-file voters. May depend on how much the Biden campaign chooses to emphasize it. There is a damaging headline for Trump (that he paid only $750) which is sometimes lacking in these sorts of stories.
Small data point, but The Daily aired some fairly long interviews with undecided voters the other day, and more of them than you might think touched upon the personal qualities of the candidates. Worth a listen.

nytimes.com/2020/09/22/pod…
And keep in mind Biden is already very close to or above 50% in many potential tipping-point states, meaning that Trump needs to win nearly all of the undecideds.

Minnesota 50.8
Wisconsin 50.7
Michigan 49.9
Pennsylvania 49.7
Nevada 48.8
Arizona 48.5
Ohio 47.9
North Carolina 47.5
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
24 Sep
Seeing debates about different strategies for testing vaccine efficacy, some of which would result in quicker but less comprehensive readouts than others. (Note: None of the experts are saying we should compromise on safety; this is all about how we measure efficacy.) 1/
The contribution I'd make as an outsider/observer of political behavior is that it seems clear patience with lockdowns and social distancing is wearing thin, in the US and (perhaps even more so) globally, and it may be even thinner after what could be a difficult winter. 2/
It may be waiting longer for a vaccine we're more certain is effective is "worth it", especially if it helps to facilitate public trust. But I wouldn't bank on "we can just count on social distancing for another X months in early/mid 2021*" as necessarily being viable. 3/
Read 4 tweets
Nate Silver Profile picture
23 Sep
1. Mail voting generally increases turnout.
2. There's a pandemic.
3. This is victim-blaming wrapped up as a hot take.
Campaign operatives in both parties generally encourage voting by mail. The added convenience is thought to outweigh the small but nonzero additional risk that your ballot won't be counted, producing increased turnout among your voters overall.
So if Democrats were to discourage mail voting when they'd otherwise encourage it, out of fears that Trump will use it as a pretext to steal the election, that itself could make Trump's re-election more likely.
Read 5 tweets

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