… Twenty Democratic candidates are set to debate in Detroit this week, as countless Democratic voters wonder, with knotted stomachs, whether anyone will emerge to defeat Donald Trump, in November, 2020. So what do the early polls tell us? I asked around and found an array of specialists firm in […] Read more »
When to pay attention to 2020 forecasts
… According to number-crunching from Christopher Wlezien and Robert Erikson, political scientists at the University of Texas and Columbia University, pre-election polls make for poor predictors until the close of summer in an election year, by which point both parties have held their nominating conventions. In their book “The 2012 […] Read more »
The Odds of a 2016 Redux
The anxiety levels of more than a few Democrats increased exponentially last Friday with the almost simultaneous publication of two articles by really bright, independent political analysts who reached the same conclusion: Despite his very low job-approval ratings, President Trump could win another split-decision election, prevailing in the Electoral College […] Read more »
The 2020 Congressional Elections: A Very Early Forecast
… In order to assess the outlook for the 2020 House and Senate elections, I used a forecasting model that provides fairly accurate predictions of seat swing based on four factors: the number of seats currently held by the president’s party, the president’s net approval rating in late August or […] Read more »
How To Read 2020 Polls Like A FiveThirtyEighter
Beware: Reading polls can be hazardous to your health. Symptoms include cherry-picking, overconfidence, falling for junky numbers and rushing to judgment. Thankfully, we have a cure. Building on an old checklist from former FiveThirtyEight political writer Harry Enten, here are some guidelines you should bear in mind when you’re interpreting […] Read more »
Early 2020 polls versus fundraising: Which matter more?
Nate Silver analyzes the significance of fundraising in the Democratic primary. ABC News Read more »