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Nate Cohn Profile picture
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11 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
I have no doubt--based on great data in FL/NV, and fuzzier data elsewhere--that GOP beat our final turnout estimates, and perhaps by a lot
Whether that's only a modest or big part of the polling error is still an open question
As an aside, I do wonder whether Democrats will rethink whether mail/early voting is a great deal, given how badly they get clobbered on Election Day--the time when low propensity, election winning voters go to the polls.
What if 'GOTV efforts' are a lot less powerful in mobilizing turnout than, say, everyone around you going to vote. Election Day being a nonevent in your neighbrhood/community/peer group may be demobilizing
There's a distinct possibility that the 2016 turnout was more favorable for Dems than 2020. Still too soon to say, of course, but there's a serious argument that it's likelier than not at this point

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More from @Nate_Cohn

Nate Cohn Profile picture
10 Nov
I haven't tweeted much about NC since Election Night, but with Cunningham conceding today let's take a look in at what's going on there
As far as I can tell, there are not nearly enough provisional and absentee ballots left for Ds to have a credible chance of making up their deficit.
Biden's down 75k votes; but there are 40k provisionals (won't all count) and maybe another 35k absentee ballots. Doesn't add up.
I do have pause about one thing, though, and I wonder whether it's a factor for any of the decision desks: some of the oddities in the results that I was tweeting about on Election Night
Read 8 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
10 Nov
Let's look at the change in turnout *so far,* based on number of votes cast compared to 2016 turnout.
Let's start nationwide, at a high level: areas in purple have counted *fewer votes* than 2016. Most of those areas still just have lots of votes left to count
As you can see, there's a ton of vote left to count in Chicago, New York state, and parts of MD/CA. I'd guess these ballots generally break Democratic, padding Biden's national lead.
One thing you might have overlooked: Philly.
For all the complaints about the count there... it's still the only place in PA that's counted fewer ballots than 2016
Read 10 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
10 Nov
Some early theories on went went wrong with the pre-election polling this year
nytimes.com/2020/11/10/ups…
Before we go into what went wrong, let's just call a spade a spade here: this was a bad polling error. It's comparable to 2016 in size, but pollsters don't have the excuses they did last time.
This year's polls would have been *way* worse than 2016 with a 2016 methodology
There are really two halves of polling: the quality of the sample you get, and the adjustments you take to improve the representativeness of your sample.
Since 2016, pollsters got better at the adjustments, but the underlying sample got worse
Read 14 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
10 Nov
Biden's lead in Pennsylvania is up to .7 points--or about 45,000 votes. Biden could still be on track to approach a lead of about 100,000 votes when all of the votes are tallied up
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Biden's lead will be padded by two main factors:
--there are still another 50k absentee ballots, predominantly in Philly and Pittsburgh, which will break overwhelmingly to Biden
--there are a large number provisional ballots, which will also break big for Biden
Earlier, there was ambiguity about just how Biden would fare in provisionals--based on data from overwhelmingly GOP counties. That ambiguity is gone.
Lancaster and Beaver county data shows Biden doing far better among provisionals. Allegheny County reported provs breaking 75-25
Read 5 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
8 Nov
Maricopa only adds about 7k ballots tonight, but they're Biden+11--assuming I did this right.
Obviously that's the wrong direction for the president, though many ballots still remain.
As always, the key is what kind of ballots we're looking at: late mail, election day drop off, provisional, or cured ballots. I haven't seen any clear indication of what this is, and absent that it's hard to be too sure of what to make of it
Given their typical sequence, this ought to be the last of the election day dropoff. If so, that's a very bad sign for Trump.
Read 8 tweets
Nate Cohn Profile picture
7 Nov
There was a point on Tuesday night--not sure the time, you can probably find the tweet--when the eastern Ohio counties came in and I think I would have thought very hard about calling Trump the favorite
There was some conflicting info among white northerners at that point: MN/ME/NH were fine for Biden, WI was close, and rural OH/IA were worse than 2016. IDK how I would have sorted it out if forced.
But there was no way to know that this red wasn't bleeding to PA
I guess by that point we did have the AZ early vote, which would have kept the non-Rust Belt path alive. But it's not like Biden was an overwhelming favorite in WI at that point either, and I do think this was well before the needle came around on Georgia
Read 14 tweets

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