Don't panic over Nate Silver

No claim of originality here. The Harris campaign is actually using Nate Silver's claim that Trump is ahead in the electoral count to motivate supporters to give more and work harder. Which is great. But a reality check is in order. As Tom Bonier and Simon Rosenberg have pointed out, Silver, without sound reasons, is factoring in what has been referred to as a "sugar high," in other words a flush of support or honeymoon for Harris, which his model predicts will evaporate. But the actual facts pretty strongly suggest this is exaggerated if not out and out unfounded. Since Dobbs, Democrats have consistently overperformed, not underperformed, polls, and, while new voter registration was poor in 2016 and hardly better in 2020, it was stupendous in 2022 and played a big role in the avoidance of the predicted Red Wave that year. This year, it was sluggish before July 21, but has been completely off the charts (up 176% among black women, for example) since then. And donations, including first time donations, are breaking all records by large margins. Moreover, while the traditional "convention bounce" was perhaps not quite as great as hoped, the trendlines of support for Harris have been quite consistently upward. Most models that use indicative data in addition to polling give greater weight to these things than the kind of "vibes" data that Silver is apparently using. If you're familiar with Bayesian reasoning, Silver is giving substantial weight in his Bayesian "priors" to data that is not actually based on anything measurable, while underweighting these kinds of actual real world data. 

All of which is to say, don't panic. Rosenberg had pretty much stopped saying "I'd much rather be us than them" in the weeks just before and after the disastrous July debate, but since Biden withdrew and Harris consolidated the support of the party in a pitch-perfect manner in the time leading up to the convention, he has been saying it with greater force and emphasis than ever. We have a lot of work to do and this election is not in the bag. But we are in a far, far better position than they are. We should take heart. We are winning, and we can sustain this momentum for the 60 days until the election. It will take determination, money, and hard work, but we can do it, and we must. 

Oh, and if you likes you your "unscientific" prediction models, know that Alan Lichtman, who has successfully predicted every presidential election at least 60 days out since 1980, has issued his "Keys to the Whitehouse" prediction: Harris wins. He has two "keys" based on foreign policy which he says could still flip, but Harris wins anyway in his model. 

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 HARRIS

WALZ

Our Champions for Democracy

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