Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silver. Do we even need a script?
Speaker 2: For today? We're talking about the election, right.
Speaker 1: We are, and today is Monday, November fourth, and so
Speaker 1: today we will be This is an extra special episode
Speaker 1: of Risky Business. We don't usually drop on Mondays, but
Speaker 1: here we are recording and dropping on the same day
Speaker 1: to bring you what we know and hope and fear
Speaker 1: and just state of the world less than twenty four
Speaker 1: hours away from election day. Yeah, it's exciting. Nate. What
Speaker 1: are your plans for today and for tomorrow?
Speaker 3: So for today there are things that are extremely high
Speaker 3: priority and things that are medium high priority. Today, at midnight,
Speaker 3: we will run the model for the last time, and
Speaker 3: I'll publish kind of my big last overview of the race.
Speaker 3: So I'm starting to write that in my head.
Speaker 2: I haven't put.
Speaker 3: Keys to our fingers to keys quite yet. We also
Speaker 3: have an election night model for Silver Bulletin readers that
Speaker 3: I think is kind of cool. It relies on which
Speaker 3: states have been called by the networks, because we didn't
Speaker 3: want to have to estimate vote shares individually. Right, we
Speaker 3: don't want to have to get too cute and we're busy.
Speaker 3: We're just two people, Eli and I. But I'll figured
Speaker 3: out that you can get a lot of information from
Speaker 3: like when a state is called. If Florida, probably a
Speaker 3: Trump state is called early for Trump accounts, it's both
Speaker 3: fast that reveals much more information than if it takes
Speaker 3: a while, and it's kind of closed, which, even though
Speaker 3: Trump might win, is kind of potentially maybe even vaguely
Speaker 3: okay for Harris. If Florida is not called until eleven PM,
Speaker 3: that means probably Trump wins by only a couple of points,
Speaker 3: which means that Harris will performing her polls. So the
Speaker 3: model can now account for the timing of calls as
Speaker 3: well as which state remains uncalled.
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty cool. Product.
Speaker 3: I have like three more hours of work to do
Speaker 3: on that product.
Speaker 1: No, that is pretty cool. Yeah, no, I didn't really
Speaker 1: think about that. But of course there is a ton
Speaker 1: of information in things like that which can be more
Speaker 1: bullish or more bearish for either of the candidates. So
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see how that plays out in real time.
Speaker 1: So before we get into kind of the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: and some of the big polls and big news that
Speaker 1: have come out since we lost spoke La last week.
Speaker 1: What is your thought on kind of where we are
Speaker 1: right now? Let's get like a big picture overview, you know,
Speaker 1: one day to go before the election. Where do we stand?
Speaker 1: Where does the ray stand?
Speaker 3: So the big picture, and we'll get into the medium
Speaker 3: sized picture in a moment. The big picture is that
Speaker 3: it's an extremely close election in the polls. That does
Speaker 3: not necessarily guarantee it will be a close election. In reality,
Speaker 3: the polls could be way off out the direction, and
Speaker 3: I've been getting more worried about that in both directions
Speaker 3: for various reasons recently. But you know, we've never had
Speaker 3: a presidential election this close to fifty to fifty. Literally,
Speaker 3: our last model run had Trump at fifty point Let
Speaker 3: me look at the exact numbers, just so I'm not
Speaker 3: misquoting myself, and Harris at forty nine point scroll down, page,
Speaker 3: scroll down, scroll down, Brood forty nine point two percent,
Speaker 3: Trump at fifty point four percent, and no majority meaning
Speaker 3: a tie which probably gets resolved for Trump by the way,
Speaker 3: at zero point four percent. So I literally do not
Speaker 3: know who's going to be ahead. In the last model
Speaker 3: run we published after midnight tonight. That is Harris's best
Speaker 3: number in two and a half weeks. At the same time,
Speaker 3: the forecast has spent the last six or seven weeks
Speaker 3: in the range we call a tass up within the
Speaker 3: range of sixty to forty.
Speaker 2: You now the direction.
Speaker 3: It's rarely fallen outside of that range.
Speaker 2: We've never gone.
Speaker 3: Outside that sixty forty range at almost any point, just
Speaker 3: for a few days for Harris after her convention she
Speaker 3: was below of forty percent. But like so, it's the
Speaker 3: same variation. There are these seven swing states. She at
Speaker 3: this point seems to be doing a little bit better
Speaker 3: in the Blue Wall states in particular Michigan and Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: less so in Pennsylvania. But that's kind of a pure
Speaker 3: tie and has kept a North Carolina and Georgia quite competitive.
Speaker 3: But if you squint, you see maybe a Trump lead
Speaker 3: of one point. No one can agree on Nevada except
Speaker 3: to say that we don't know anything about Nevada. Arizona
Speaker 3: is the one state that seems like the safest bet
Speaker 3: for Trump, although although Maria, there was a poll of
Speaker 3: Latino voters out today that showed Harris ahead, and it
Speaker 3: survey just I think it was Telemundo or Univision.
Speaker 2: I can't one of.
Speaker 3: Those major networks that had Harris winning Latinos by thirty
Speaker 3: two points in a large sample of Latinos or something
Speaker 3: the range of thirty two points, which would be a
Speaker 3: total reversal of earlier poland that showed her doing worse
Speaker 3: than typical Democratic margins among the Hispanic population. And you
Speaker 3: have this plausible cause where Trump had this rally where
Speaker 3: one of the warm up speakers made offensive comments about
Speaker 3: Puerto Ricans, and all these Latino pop stars endorsed Harris,
Speaker 3: and that would.
Speaker 2: Be a big deal.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's when you might get you know, in
Speaker 3: particular Arizona, Nevada finishing for Harris a little bit than
Speaker 3: the polls might suggest. By the way, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of Puerto Ricans in eastern Pennsylvania. There are some
Speaker 3: counties in Pennsylvania where eleven percent of the population is
Speaker 3: Puerto Rican.
Speaker 2: That could be important in.
Speaker 3: A race that could come down to one or two
Speaker 3: counties in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: And so I don't know, we.
Speaker 1: Talked about it last week bad but any matters people
Speaker 1: that matter.
Speaker 3: Well, I also worry that, like, look, there's not a
Speaker 3: huge change in the race. There's also some data that
Speaker 3: Harris is doing well with people who decided late in
Speaker 3: the race over the past week. You know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I wish, despite wanting to get some sleep and having
Speaker 3: this fucking thing be over with, I wish that uh,
Speaker 3: we had like three more days of polling, or that
Speaker 3: we had polsters that were pulling this week in because
Speaker 3: like you can kind of see the makings of a
Speaker 3: trend toward Harris. It's not so clear that it isn't
Speaker 3: just noise. A lot of polsters, by the way, are
Speaker 3: it's got picked up last.
Speaker 2: Week, are hurting.
Speaker 3: They're just kind of literally matching the polling averages exactly
Speaker 3: in every state.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: But the independent data points like this pull latinos.
Speaker 2: The last seve New.
Speaker 3: York Times polls were pretty good for har It's not fantastic,
Speaker 3: you know, consistent with tilt Harris race. Also some poles
Speaker 3: that were good for Trump. Right, I mean, the forecast
Speaker 3: is like literally fifty to fifty. Now she talked about
Speaker 3: the Seltzer poll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it. So let's first set this up
Speaker 1: for people who don't obsessively follow polls. So the Seltzer poll,
Speaker 1: one of the most high quality polls that exists and
Speaker 1: something that people really pay attention to. Nate, do you
Speaker 1: want to just give us like a little bit of
Speaker 1: an overview why her poll matters and kind of what
Speaker 1: this means and why it's important that this poll dropped
Speaker 1: just right now and is actually giving information that is
Speaker 1: contrary to two prior polls in the state.
Speaker 3: So and Seltzer is the one polster that kind of
Speaker 3: doesn't have egg on her face. She has repeatedly defied
Speaker 3: the conventional wisdom and bean correct I remember in two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight she had Barack Obama winning the Iowa
Speaker 3: caucuses by a large margin.
Speaker 2: People didn't believe it, and he did so.
Speaker 3: In June and Seltzer has a poll showing Biden trailing
Speaker 3: Trump by eighteen points even a by the way, eighteen
Speaker 3: points is epic landslide. And she has an old school poster.
Speaker 3: She doesn't do this hurting crap. She's not afraid to
Speaker 3: let her data speak for itself. In September, she has
Speaker 3: a poll showing Kamala Harris trailing Trump, but by only
Speaker 3: four points in Iowa. People are like, oh, it's an outliner.
Speaker 3: Kind of interesting, kind of interesting. I think Biden lost
Speaker 3: Iowa by eight points in twenty and twenty, so she
Speaker 3: had her finer pull out on Saturday night. I had
Speaker 3: plans on Saturday which were canceled because of this poll.
Speaker 3: I'm okay, it'll probably show Trump plus six, a little
Speaker 3: bit better for Harris, and the priors might be, but
Speaker 3: you know whatever, we know Trump's gonna win Iowa instead.
Speaker 3: The number is Harris plus three, the state that Democrats
Speaker 3: lost by nine points in twenty eight nine points in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, Harris has had by three points. Now, look,
Speaker 3: these poles have a margin of error. If you actually
Speaker 3: calculate this out diligently like I do, the real margin
Speaker 3: could be Trump plus three, or for that matter, Harris
Speaker 3: plus nine or whatever.
Speaker 2: I think that's pretty unlikely.
Speaker 3: But this is an epistemologically important data point because Anne
Speaker 3: Selter doesn't follow the herd. One of the few independent
Speaker 3: pieces of information that you get. And there's kind of
Speaker 3: a story of like Paris getting some surprisingly good polls
Speaker 3: in this kind of prairie part of the Midwest. Right,
Speaker 3: You've got polls of Ohio that she's probably gonna win Ohio,
Speaker 3: but are closer. You got poles, and you know in Nebraska,
Speaker 3: including the one district where they do reward an electoral vote,
Speaker 3: that have been very good for Harris all year long,
Speaker 3: even a pole and Kansas.
Speaker 2: Showed a single digit race. You know. The thing that
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense is like, if she's doing so.
Speaker 3: Well in Iowa, then why is it tied in Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna have like Wisconsin Harris plus one and
Speaker 3: Iowa Harris plus three. If she wins by three in
Speaker 3: Ioways probably wins by seven in Wisconsin or something at
Speaker 3: a minimum, And so lots of theories about it, but
Speaker 3: but you know, it reassured. At the very least, it
Speaker 3: raises the possibility that polsters who have less guts than
Speaker 3: an Seltzer are terrified to show Harris leads because they're knits, Maria,
Speaker 3: They're fucking knits, and they're terrified of being wrong and
Speaker 3: being criticized because they don't have the fucking guts that
Speaker 3: that we have here on the podcast.
Speaker 1: This is true.
Speaker 2: This is true.
Speaker 1: We're definitely not.
Speaker 2: And they have bad data.
Speaker 3: By the way, if you have bad data, to just
Speaker 3: copy the polling averages.
Speaker 1: But that's absolutely true. So if so, if Seltzer is
Speaker 1: is onto something I'm actually a little bit curious about
Speaker 1: your your take on whether we've been We've been critical
Speaker 1: of her VP pick for for many for many months,
Speaker 1: basically since she made it. Do you think that Walls
Speaker 1: might be helping her a little bit? No, not at all.
Speaker 2: She's Minnesota. That is that is very funny the satur
Speaker 2: Live skit where they couldn't tell it was Tim Walls
Speaker 2: or Tim Kane. I think is all you need to know?
Speaker 1: Is all you need to know?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: All right, I just wanted I just wanted to throw
Speaker 1: that out there. But yeah, it seems like ann Seltzer
Speaker 1: has more balls than a lot of the other polsters
Speaker 1: that we're seeing. And uh, and that says something so
Speaker 1: other than that. We had the New York Times Siena
Speaker 1: polls right come out. That is the other thing that
Speaker 1: has uh, that has changed since you and I spoke,
Speaker 1: and those are well, why don't you why don't you
Speaker 1: give us a little bit of an update and how
Speaker 1: that has has that has affected your thinking if at all?
Speaker 1: Because they did their polls of the seven swing states
Speaker 1: right New.
Speaker 3: York Time Sceiena College had shown this unusual divide where
Speaker 3: they had had Harris doing conspicuously well in the Blue
Speaker 3: Wall states. Again, those are in Michigan, Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: and conspicuously badly outside of the blue walls, so North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada.
Speaker 3: Those margins tightened a little bit in their final set
Speaker 3: of poles, which could reflect I mean, they don't heard either,
Speaker 3: at least I don't think it could reflect mean reversion, right.
Speaker 3: I mean maybe if you if you burnt all these
Speaker 3: poles and you're honest and you don't heard, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have some results that are are our outliers, and directionally speaking,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, they still show a wider gap
Speaker 3: in somebody.
Speaker 2: It was a little more scrambled, right.
Speaker 3: It kind of was more that thesis like, yeah, all
Speaker 3: these seven states are are are really close. But in general,
Speaker 3: I think, if you like, in general, they were consistent
Speaker 3: with like a map where Harris probably finds some way
Speaker 3: to win. I think they had her head in like
Speaker 3: North Carolina and Nevada and Michigan, Wisconsin. That's the case
Speaker 3: where actually Nevada would matter in that precise combination. I
Speaker 3: think they also had Pennsylvania as a tie. Roughly, well,
Speaker 3: all these poles, I have had a tie roughly, I
Speaker 3: think they had like an exact DIY.
Speaker 2: It's going for memory here.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Now, look there are other poles. This this
Speaker 3: Brazilian in firm called Atlas Intel, that's highly rated, that's
Speaker 3: had very Trump numbers. National polls have tightened a lot,
Speaker 3: to the point where you would think that would be
Speaker 3: good news for Trump. If he wins or loses a
Speaker 3: popular vote by only a pointer, or wins a popular vote,
Speaker 3: then he probably is gonna win the electoral College. So yeah,
Speaker 3: conflicting data, but I'd say that I mean both the
Speaker 3: model and kind of.
Speaker 2: My subjective subjective take not worth very much.
Speaker 3: Are are you know, more bullish for Harris than they
Speaker 3: were a week ago or two weeks ago, And to
Speaker 3: the point where if you literally gave me a million
Speaker 3: dollar free bet, I'm not sure who had been on,
Speaker 3: I'd be here.
Speaker 2: I'd be here.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because we know that a few a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago that would not have been the case. And
Speaker 1: I you know, from a psychological standpoint, I'm really nervous
Speaker 1: that I am taking the data that I want to
Speaker 1: see because obviously we we know, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: very open that I voted for Harris. I want Harris
Speaker 1: to win. And so when I see this, you know,
Speaker 1: and sells her poll, I'm like, yes, also right, like
Speaker 1: we're seeing yes, absolutely, this means she's going to win.
Speaker 1: This means she's going to win. And I am so
Speaker 1: nervous of that tendency because confirmation bias is real, right,
Speaker 1: and there are people on Trump's on you know, Trump
Speaker 1: supporters who are you know, just as absolutely certain that
Speaker 1: Trump is going to win. And we know that the
Speaker 1: way betting markets work, right, if you're someone's betting against you,
Speaker 1: and both sides always think that they're right, otherwise they
Speaker 1: would not be putting money down. And usually everyone thinks
Speaker 1: that the other person's the dumb money. No one thinks
Speaker 1: that they're the dumb money.
Speaker 3: The betters, by the way, have tightened.
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, let's actually talk about that a little bit
Speaker 1: because poly market and betting markets in general. But Polymarket
Speaker 1: has made the biggest move because poly Market was the
Speaker 1: biggest Trump favorite outlier.
Speaker 2: There are a couple of things here.
Speaker 3: One hypothesis is that this French she was identifies like
Speaker 3: some French guy with sort of midwith opinions like.
Speaker 2: Shy trump boarders, I'm French, the French.
Speaker 1: We need your French accent?
Speaker 3: Where shot swamp filltel? I really French, I really do
Speaker 3: fore it to do regional American?
Speaker 1: All right, fine, let's say where where's the where's our
Speaker 1: French guy from in regional America? All right, let's do it?
Speaker 2: Uh Louisiana? Okay?
Speaker 3: Anyway, But like so, maybe he just ran out of
Speaker 3: money that he's willing to bet. And if if he
Speaker 3: is now put all the money he's willing to invest
Speaker 3: in this bet and kind of capitulate it, then it
Speaker 3: kind of falls to this price floor. And I think
Speaker 3: that's part of what happened, because like the movement in
Speaker 3: polling averages didn't really correlate that well day to day
Speaker 3: with movement in the polls except the Seltzer pole. But
Speaker 3: the Seltzer pole also changes a narrative a lot. And
Speaker 3: so you know, so one story is about this one
Speaker 3: trader who impacted the whole market, right. Another story is
Speaker 3: that you have lots of people making technical trades because
Speaker 3: they think they can read the vibes of the market.
Speaker 3: And then you have a reconciliation close to the elections.
Speaker 3: So if you get Harris cheap, right, maybe you might
Speaker 3: now hedge on some trump but anyway, but it could
Speaker 3: be that you revert to the fundamentals. But they converged.
Speaker 3: The markets converged toward the models and not the other
Speaker 3: way around. And again, I work as a consultant for polymarkets.
Speaker 3: I respect both of these techniques. But I think people
Speaker 3: don't understand that market sentiment is a thing, particularly in.
Speaker 2: Things. Well, I don't know. I guess.
Speaker 3: I guess it's more anchored to some reality than a
Speaker 3: lot of things that are are traded. Right, But market
Speaker 3: sentiment is a thing and becoming more of a thing,
Speaker 3: right when game stop can go rocket one hundred x
Speaker 3: based on no fundamental change whatsoever, right or NFTs or
Speaker 3: or or you know, dj T, Donald John Trump, DJT stock.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Look, and again, as someone who's actively an actual gambler,
Speaker 3: I am understand that rich whales are what make gambling
Speaker 3: profitable for skilled gamblers. They're a very important part of
Speaker 3: the ecosystem. And you have people who are like who
Speaker 3: are like, well, he's putting his money behind it.
Speaker 2: It must be you must know something.
Speaker 3: No, he's probably a fucking idiot, right, an idiot will
Speaker 3: be right. Fifty one percent of the time, so God
Speaker 3: bless him. But like, god, have you ever fucking met
Speaker 3: rich people with like strong political opinions?
Speaker 2: They are not.
Speaker 1: Particularly half and they are they are some of my
Speaker 1: favorite opponents at the poker table.
Speaker 3: And they are great to having your lifestyle right, But
Speaker 3: like they don't they index off these kind of stylized
Speaker 3: truths that are not more accurate, I don't think than
Speaker 3: the models now when there's no information. If you know,
Speaker 3: there's a murder investigation into Kamala Harris's husband that begins tonight, right,
Speaker 3: you know, that won't have time to be reflected in
Speaker 3: the polls, but it will be reflected by prediction markets,
Speaker 3: and so that's quite useful. But like, but they kind
Speaker 3: of believe in these halfways superstitious things, and in any event,
Speaker 3: they've converged toward the models. I mean, there's a slight
Speaker 3: Trump edge in Polly Marker. I think it's you know,
Speaker 3: fifty six forty four or something, but much closer than
Speaker 3: it had been a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting that there's still a Trump edge there.
Speaker 1: And then yet you say that if you were given
Speaker 1: a million dollar free roll, you might actually place it
Speaker 1: on Harris So this is just this is giving me
Speaker 1: and my gambler's mind a little bit of pause to
Speaker 1: try to figure out, you know, what are some arbitrage
Speaker 1: opportunities right now leading into the election. But I'm interested
Speaker 1: to see what will actually happen and how this will
Speaker 1: play out. And given the fact that everything is so close,
Speaker 1: let's pivot a tiny bit and talk about our predictions
Speaker 1: for tomorrow and for whether when we basically think this
Speaker 1: race is going to be done, we'll be back right
Speaker 1: after this. We've obviously had some close elections last election cycle,
Speaker 1: so four years ago, we did not know the outcome
Speaker 1: on election day itself. What do we think, you know,
Speaker 1: if we were, if we were making some predictions, what
Speaker 1: do we think is going to happen this year? Because
Speaker 1: obviously there are some people who are giving just very
Speaker 1: you know, scary civil warlike predictions that you know, no,
Speaker 1: no outcome is going to be accepted, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: all these all these things are going to happen. People
Speaker 1: are going to not certify. They're all of these what ifs.
Speaker 1: So let's try to talk from a rational, data driven,
Speaker 1: not an emotional perspective, not the things I'm afraid of
Speaker 1: and try to figure out what do we think is
Speaker 1: going to happen tomorrow, What where do the results need
Speaker 1: to be, what do the margins need to be like
Speaker 1: for the result to be kind of definitive within the
Speaker 1: next few days, or or Nate, are you and I
Speaker 1: going to be having this conversation for the next month
Speaker 1: two months to try to figure out who the hell
Speaker 1: won the election and what's happening.
Speaker 3: So, as I think I talked about before, if you
Speaker 3: want a non tense election, then you want to be
Speaker 3: rooting for a polling air. So this is why my
Speaker 3: life sucks either way this nightmare or situation, or you
Speaker 3: have a big polling air because like so, if the
Speaker 3: polls are off consistently in the same direction, then then
Speaker 3: someone could sweep six or seven of the swing states.
Speaker 3: And in that case, then I look, I'm sure that
Speaker 3: Trump would not happily accept defeat unless it's really really bad.
Speaker 3: But yeah, there's a thirty four percent chance that one
Speaker 3: candidate sweeps all the swing states, and like another twenty
Speaker 3: percent chance that it's six or seven in one direction.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've tried to look alonto.
Speaker 1: By the way, those are pretty high percentages. Thirty four
Speaker 1: percent is a pretty high percentage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one in three.
Speaker 3: I've tried to look a lot at uh, exactly how
Speaker 3: the night will play out. That's important for the election
Speaker 3: night stuff I'm doing. You know, the vote counting should
Speaker 3: be faster than last time around because there are fewer
Speaker 3: male votes, because you don't have Democrats staying at home
Speaker 3: because of COVID as much. Some states have expedited their procedures,
Speaker 3: some have not.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean there's rebel.
Speaker 3: Networks call at versus we'll skilled traders know by which
Speaker 3: way it's leaning by three am Wednesday morning. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'd say seventy percent chance that we'll know by Wednesday
Speaker 3: three am with ninety five plus percent confidence.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's higher than I would have thought.
Speaker 3: Estimate pulled out of my ass Well, you're.
Speaker 1: You're pulled out of ask. Estimate actually reassures me a
Speaker 1: little bit because I.
Speaker 2: Was that doesn't mean Trump except the results. Right.
Speaker 3: Let's say, Harris, it's a blue wall plus Nevada plus
Speaker 3: North Carolina, one of the more plausible maps, by the way, you.
Speaker 2: Know, that gives her some room to spare.
Speaker 3: Right in that scenario, she could like lose anyone's state
Speaker 3: and still have a victory anyone.
Speaker 2: Of the swing stage. She couldn't list California or something.
Speaker 3: And you know, and that outcome might be clear enough
Speaker 3: that we'd know it by three four am, although Nevada
Speaker 3: takes a long time to count its votes in Pennsylvania's too,
Speaker 3: but we might know by three or four am. And
Speaker 3: then it's all about the aftermath and about and about
Speaker 3: you know, what happens with Trump now. Congress passed reforms
Speaker 3: to the vote counting process. Basically, it's actually a pretty
Speaker 3: good law in the view of election experts that I
Speaker 3: read from. It basically allows the courts to have precedence
Speaker 3: over Republican legislature, or Democratic ones for that matter, over
Speaker 3: people who were at the state level, state officials who
Speaker 3: are trying to interfere with the vote count. And the
Speaker 3: courts have not shown any tolerance for Trump's shenanigans. He
Speaker 3: lost like all but one of the other He was
Speaker 3: like one out of sixty in like court rulings in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. Also, you have in place in all these
Speaker 3: states positions people in key positions like governors and secretaries
Speaker 3: of state. You know, you have Democrats having a firewall
Speaker 3: and almost all, if not all, of these swing states
Speaker 3: and at least some of those roles, or in the
Speaker 3: case of Georgia, you have Brian Kemp, who is notoriously
Speaker 3: not a fan of Trump's tendency to deny that he
Speaker 3: lost the election in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: So so I'm.
Speaker 3: Not so worried about like, if Harris wins, she won't
Speaker 3: become presidents somehow? Am I worried about violence a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And just for the record too, I mean, if
Speaker 3: if it's a really close Trump when I don't know
Speaker 3: what happens, then either people aren't happy.
Speaker 1: I actually I do hope. I'm sorry, Nate, I know
Speaker 1: that you said, you know, you're in a very tough spot,
Speaker 1: but I do hope that the polling averages are off
Speaker 1: in the sense that I hope that it's a more
Speaker 1: decisive election result than it is a closer one, because
Speaker 1: I think that would just be better for you know,
Speaker 1: better for the country in a lot of respects. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, as we know, I'm biased, So I hope
Speaker 1: that that victory is in Kamala Harris's favor. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think that this is going to be a crucial election,
Speaker 1: not just in terms of who wins, but in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, the future of our democratic institutions, just to
Speaker 1: kind of watch to see how they can be stress tested,
Speaker 1: right they and whether how much they've weakened versus not,
Speaker 1: and what's just going to happen over the next few days.
Speaker 1: I do hope, hope that by November sixth, as you said,
Speaker 1: so next time we're talking is going to be November six, right,
Speaker 1: So we're going to be dropping another Risky Business podcast
Speaker 1: in two days. So I hope that you know, nine
Speaker 1: am Pacific noon Eastern when we when we speak, that
Speaker 1: we will actually know the results of the election. I
Speaker 1: think that would be such a wonderful outcome, just just
Speaker 1: to know that, Okay, we're not going to have this
Speaker 1: protracted battle going on. And to me, to me, that
Speaker 1: would be to me that would you know, that's something
Speaker 1: that's really an optimistic, an optimistic take, because I definitely
Speaker 1: see the scenario we're on the six you and I
Speaker 1: are talking again being like, so who do we think
Speaker 1: is gonna win this election and what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: And I don't want to be having that conversation again
Speaker 1: in the sense of wow, like we really can't decide,
Speaker 1: and and shit's going down because I do think there
Speaker 1: is a lot of uncertainty, and I do think that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that we just don't
Speaker 1: know because this is a largely not unprecedented, but it's
Speaker 1: a very different situation than any that's happened during our lifetimes.
Speaker 1: And as you say, this is this is the closest
Speaker 1: race we've had, right, this is the closest race we've
Speaker 1: had during our lifetime.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I've never had a race where it's
Speaker 3: literally fifty to fifty before on election day, and it's
Speaker 3: I'm only forecasted for presidential elections, I guess, But like,
Speaker 3: you know, look, I was gonna say that, oh, if
Speaker 3: you're a Democrat and Trump has to win, then maybe
Speaker 3: at least what happened when clearly so you know, it
Speaker 3: kind of ends the misery earlier and or avoids the
Speaker 3: sorts of you know, whatever that could happen in a
Speaker 3: close election. I think if you're somebody who is like
Speaker 3: concerned about Trump excesses and overreach, you want a close
Speaker 3: election if Trump wins. Conditional on Trump running for a
Speaker 3: different reason though, which is that in a close election,
Speaker 3: there's a chance that Democrats control still control, probably not
Speaker 3: the Senate. Either control the House or keep the Senate
Speaker 3: to a margin where Trump can't appoint insane cabinet secretaries
Speaker 3: and has some degree of oversight, right that you don't
Speaker 3: have Robert F.
Speaker 2: Cannedy Junior as a health secretary for example. I'm not joking.
Speaker 2: He's talked about it.
Speaker 3: If you have a fifty two excuse me, a fifty
Speaker 3: one forty nine up majority in the Senate, you're going
Speaker 3: to have some objectors to objectors at RFK Junior. If
Speaker 3: it's fifty four seats, then that's a huge difference. So
Speaker 3: scenario where like the polling is way off on Trump
Speaker 3: and he beats his polls again and again, this is
Speaker 3: look this up. I mean, it's unsurprisingly where Republicans beat
Speaker 3: their polls in the presidential race and vice versa, the
Speaker 3: Senate candidates will do the same thing with very high correlation.
Speaker 3: So so yeah, Democrats, I think, really want to avoid
Speaker 3: these lands to lide outcome where they are kind of
Speaker 3: totally dealt out of power.
Speaker 1: I mean, I obviously agree, but I as people know,
Speaker 1: you know that's the outcome I want is a Democratic victory.
Speaker 1: But like I said, I'm trying. I'm trying my best, Nate,
Speaker 1: to look at the data without that emotional tint right now,
Speaker 1: because I think that emotion ain't going to help anyone
Speaker 1: other than you know, as we already said, if you
Speaker 1: haven't voted yet, please please please go out and vote,
Speaker 1: and if you're undecided, please go, you know, please go
Speaker 1: and vote tomorrow. I think that that is crucially important.
Speaker 2: That's by the way, let me have you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talk about these seven swing states, and there's
Speaker 3: you know, a ninety percent chance that one of them
Speaker 3: is what I call the tipping points state.
Speaker 2: But if you're in.
Speaker 3: Iowa or New Hampshire or Virginia or New Mexico or
Speaker 3: Minnesota or so Alaska, some of these states are reaches
Speaker 3: for the cat ades, but they come up there once
Speaker 3: in a while, right, And we're pretty smart about how
Speaker 3: we simulate this, and like, if the polls are way off,
Speaker 3: you could have some surprising states in place. So if
Speaker 3: you're in that broader pin number of swing states, whoever
Speaker 3: you have, if you have a preference, I'm not endorsing anybody,
Speaker 3: but I would endorse idea of your vote being worth
Speaker 3: the time for you to get off your ass and
Speaker 3: vote tomorrow. It's going to be easier now because, like,
Speaker 3: because you have in moll states this spread of like
Speaker 3: methods of voting. The polls aren't as swarmed as much
Speaker 3: on election days, so you're not going to have to,
Speaker 3: you know, go too far away. Go go one of
Speaker 3: those nice artistical coffee shops, right, and you get your sticker.
Speaker 3: So I will endorse idea of voting.
Speaker 1: So now you know, with less than twenty four hours
Speaker 1: left to go, I am going to let you go
Speaker 1: and worry about your final model and polls and looking
Speaker 1: forward to seeing what the silver bulletin says tonight. Nate,
Speaker 1: as you've already said, you have no idea what it's
Speaker 1: going to look like when you run the model for
Speaker 1: the last time.
Speaker 3: Just as we were taping this, there was a Marist
Speaker 3: National poll, another high quality pul so that is known
Speaker 3: for not hurting, that had Harris plus four or so. Look,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, I don't know who I'd
Speaker 3: been on. People think I'm like tinkering with knobs and shit,
Speaker 3: I don't. I have no idea who we had to Well.
Speaker 1: Let's see, and I'm very curious. I will be waiting
Speaker 1: with baited breath. So with that, let's let's leave. Everyone.
Speaker 1: Please please go vote and we will check back in
Speaker 1: in forty eight hours to see to see where we are.
Speaker 1: Good luck everybody, indeed, good luck America. Let us know
Speaker 1: what you think of the show. Reach out to us
Speaker 1: at Risky Business at pushkin dot Fm. Risky Business is
Speaker 1: hosted by me Maria Kannikova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is J.
Speaker 2: Goldstein. If you like the.
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