Tim Miller, your thoughts. Well,
Nicole, I mean, in some ways, obviously, this is a shock. It's an earthquake. Dick Cheney,
Darth Vader, uh, voting for the Democrats, uh, should be a wake up call to everybody. Um,
that's really not that much of a surprise, especially when you consider the trajectory
that Liz Cheney has been on the last few years. I'm not surprised at all that her dad,
Dick Cheney, or as he called Darth Vader, is voting for Kamala Harris. And look, if you
guys have been calling him Darth Vader, I don't think it's that much of a win that he's voting
for your candidate because does that not make you the galactic empire? Does that not make you
the big bad of the reality that we're living in? But look, I think the reason the Democrats are
so cheerful about Darth Vader voting for their candidate is because the polling has been
pretty lackluster for Kamala Harris. Now, in this video, I'm going to leave
out my spin. We're just going to focus on the numbers, and we're going to
go over three different sets of numbers. Number one, Nate Silver's projection. Number
two, the 538 averages. And number three, the real clear politics averages. And from now
on, To save myself a mouthful, I'm just going to refer to RCP in short for Real Clear Politics. So,
um, Democrats are all up in a tizzy because today, Nate Silver released his new model and
he's projecting that Donald Trump has a 61. 5 percent chance of winning the general
election. Now, a lot of people mis Uh, misinterpret or sometimes misrepresent Nate
Silver's model. He is not saying that Trump is going to win 61 percent to Harris's
38%. What he's saying is that this is probability. Trump has a 61. 5 percent
probability of winning the election. And if you think of it in terms of probability,
he's 61. 5 percent probability really isn't that different from 50 50, so we're not out
of the woods yet. But the trend line is definitely encouraging as we get closer
to Election Day. And as you can see, Trump is, uh, his probability is
the highest it's been since July. Since, uh, before Joe Biden dropped out
of the race. So what does that actually look like in practice? Well, a 61. 5
percent probability means that Trump would get 277. 9 electoral votes. I'm just
going to round that up to 278. And Harris would receive 260. And of course, just
a friendly reminder for everyone, 278. 70 is the magic number to win. So basically
this would still be a squeaker. Trump would only win by eight electoral votes. What's
really notable here is the predicted popular vote share. Both only, um, really being,
uh, 49. 9 percent compared to 49%. Uh, just less than 1 percent separating both of
them. Uh, what makes Nate Silver interesting is that he has an algorithm and he He doesn't just
average the polling numbers like RCP and 538 does. He actually takes a look at the trend lines and
that's what makes silver so interesting. So just to give you an idea of how trend lines work, uh,
this actually has to do with the unemployment rate. This is more of a tangent than it is.
Taking a look at Nate Silver's model, but this is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and you
can see the employment rate jobs being added. And you can see 2016 to 2019 when Donald Trump
was in, uh, was in office when he was president, you could see all these, uh, jobs being added. And
then of course you see the drop because of COVID, because of the shutdowns. And then you can
see the Joe Biden, Kamala Harris recovery, the bounce back, even though we've bounced back. We're still well below the pre pandemic trend
lines. So what Nate Silver is doing here, the reason that I showed that was just,
I thought it was a great visualization of trend lines. He is taking into account the
trend lines of the current polling. So what he did is really interesting. He took a look at
polling before the DNC and polling after the DNC. So here you can see, um, I circled,
or I put a rectangle around now, and we can take a look at the polling now
in Pennsylvania. Kamala Harris is up ahead, uh, 0. 6%. Uh, really the only states
where Trump is leading right now, just according to the raw polling numbers, is
North Carolina. Trump is up 1 percent in Arizona. Trump is up 1. 9%. But this is where trend lines
are important because at the start of the DNC, Trump was only ahead in one state. That
was Georgia. So what does that mean? That means that there for sure was no post
convention bounce for Kamala Harris. In fact, Her polling got worse after the DNC. It was
the opposite of a post convention bounce. I wouldn't quite call it a post convention crash,
but it definitely wasn't a bounce. Maybe an egg crack? Uh, take a look at the change. So
yes, Kamala Harris is ahead right now. in Pennsylvania, 0. 6%, but since DNC, it's actually
moved in Donald Trump's favor by 1%. In fact, all of these states, with the exception of Georgia,
have moved in favor of Donald Trump since the DNC. This is huge news. And so that's
what Nate Silver is doing, taking a look at those trend lines. And
so when he factors in those trend lines, that's how he gets to this number, 278
for Trump and 260 for Harris. This So, what were the, what are the polling averages,
the 2024 polling averages for both 538 and RCP? Well, right now, they show, um, Kamala
Harris pretty much dominating across the board. They show, uh, Kamala Harris leading
nationally. Uh, FiveThirtyEight shows her leading nationally, 3. 2%. Real clear, RCP
shows her leading 1. 8%. Now all of these are the Harris lead. The only states where Trump
is ahead is where you see a T in parentheses. So the blue wall. If all of these are
true, Kamala Harris, um, wins the blue wall in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.
It doesn't matter if you're looking at 538 or real clear politics. And then
in, uh, the south and southwest, Trump is only ahead in the 538 averages in
North Carolina, and he's only had 0. 4%. And then in, RCP, Trump is ahead in all
of them, with the exception of Nevada, where it's tied. So again, this is just raw
polling data. So let's say the raw polling data is correct. Well, if 538 is correct,
then Democrats win. Kamala Harris wins 303 electoral votes. Republicans 235. So that
would be a landslide for Kamala Harris. So again, this is just the raw polling, uh, data.
And I'm going to analyze this a little further, taking a look, taking into account how much
the polls missed in both 2020 and 2016. So according to 538 right now, if you don't do
any, uh, analysis, Democrats win 303. Again, let's compare that to Nate Silver, who is
a Democrat and also has his own algorithm. Again, Nate Silver is saying that Trump wins 278,
and he's taking a look at those trend lines. Uh, same thing with RCP. Again, just the raw data, um,
Democrats win, uh, 270 and 262 for Republicans. And the reason I left Nevada blank is because
if we go back to these polling averages, uh, if you look at the real RCP averages on the
very right hand side, Nevada, it's a tie. 0%. There's a 0 percent lead for Harris.
They are both tied, so on the electoral map, I left Nevada blank. But this shows, this RCP
map right now shows why Pennsylvania is so important. Because if Trump wins Pennsylvania,
then he wins the election, if this map is true. So even without Nevada in the mix, if Kamala
Harris wins Pennsylvania, she wins the election. But there is an issue. The polls have
Historically underestimated Trump. And this isn't spin. Let me level with you. This
isn't me trying to be hopeful. This isn't me trying to get anyone's hopes up. This is
just based on the raw data. So in 2020, how did the polls do? The blue box
that I circled, or that I rectangled, I'll make up that word, shows you how
much they underestimated Donald Trump. So in 538, they underestimated Trump in the blue
wall states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, by an average of 5. 5%. And in the south and
southwest of 538, underestimated Trump by an average of 2. 1%. And in real clear politics,
Um, RCP, they underestimated Trump in the blue wall states by 2. 5%, and they underestimated
Trump in the southwest and southeast by 1. 1%. So a lot of people have asked why I use,
um, RCP over 538, because 538 has more polls, and wouldn't you think that that would be more
accurate because it has more polls? Well, I, RCP, as you can see, they were more accurate.
You know, they only underestimated Trump By 2. 5 percent and 1. 1 percent compared
to 538, which underestimated Trump by 5. 5 percent and 2. 1%. Again, this is the 2020
election results. Um, so they have a history of underestimating. What RCP does is they do a
rolling month average, and then once the month, once that rolling month is over, the older
polls drop off. And then with FiveThirtyEight, they have an algorithm similar to Nate
Silver, where they try to weight the polls. And so that's why you see such a big
difference between 538 and RCP. They have, uh, different criteria for who they include, and
then RCP is just a true average of the polls, and then 538 tries to weight
them. Um, they don't have the same algorithm that Nate Silver uses. They
have diverged in terms of their algorithms. So, So, 2020 wasn't dissimilar from 2016. In
2016, RCP underestimated Trump, they actually did worse in 2016, they underestimated
Trump in the blue wall states by 3. 3%, underestimated him in the south and
southwest by 1. 7%. So this is 2016, I'm going to put that on the left. Let me
put 2020 on the right. Um, so let's, uh, start with RCP and I, I want to take the most, um,
jaded, the most negative, the most conservative, uh, approach to this, because I don't want to over
promise, like I don't want to spin this for Trump. I, I just want to be, you know, as even
keeled as possible. So, um, Real clear politics. Their smallest miss, um, was
2020. They, uh, missed the blue wall states by 2. 5 percent and they missed the
south and southwest by 1. 1%. So I'm going to remove 2016 from the board, okay? Now
2024. I'm going to put this on the left. So, assuming that RCP Again, this is the
smaller miss. This isn't the big miss. This is the more accurate numbers. They
underestimated Trump support in Michigan by 1. 5%. Right now, Harris is ahead 1.
1%. Well, that means if this is true, then Trump would win Michigan by 0. 4%.
In Pennsylvania, uh, RCP was spot on 0. 0%. So according to RCP. Um, Harris
is ahead, so Harris wins Pennsylvania. So we're gonna go down this board, and
across, basically Trump wins everything with the exception of Pennsylvania. So, let's
apply this to the electoral college map. Um, if RCP underestimates Trump the way that they did,
then Trump would win 287 electoral votes to 245. This would be, you know, I don't want to call
it a landslide for Trump, but this is, uh, good news for conservatives. Now let's compare
this to what Nate Silver projected. Nate Silver projected 278. So again, pretty similar. And, uh,
just to reiterate, this is using the more accurate Trump mix, uh, miss, because we have two years,
2020, 2016, where they underestimated Trump. And I'm taking the, the more accurate.
I'm not overestimating their miss. I'm just using historical performance and going
with what's most accurate. So again, uh, let's compare. So that was RCP, but now
let's do 538. 538 is the box highlighted in blue. On the left hand side of your
screen is 2020. On the right hand is 2016. So um, they were more accurate in 2016, 538
was. They uh, only underestimated Trump by 5 percent in the blue belt states,
the blue wall states. compared to 5. 5 percent in 2020. And then in the South
and Southwest, they only underestimated Trump by 2 percent compared to 2. 1 percent in
2020. So I'm going to use the 2016 numbers. Now let's bring up the 2024 polling averages. In
Michigan, 538 has Harris ahead by 2. 4%. Well, let's say they underestimated Trump again
by 4. 5%. Well, Trump wins Michigan, Pennsylvania hares ahead 1. 2 percent. They
underestimated Trump by 4. 4 percent. So Trump wins Pennsylvania. In fact, it
would be a clean sweep in the blue wall in South and Southwest if these
538, again, the more accurate miss. So what would that look like in
the Electoral College? Again, this is the smaller miss. That would
be 312 for Trump Republicans to, uh, 226 for Kamala Harris. So again, let's go over
those three maps. Uh, it'll actually be five when all is said and done. So Nate Silver,
number one, says Trump 278 to 260. Uh, 5 38. This is just the raw averages, not doing any of
the polling misses. 5 38. Uh, Democrats win 3 0 3 Republicans, 2 35 RCP. Again, just the raw
averages. Two 70 to 2 62 for Republicans. Uh, Republicans gained the 2 62. And then if
we factor in the polling misses again, taking the smaller miss, the
more accurate Miss, uh, RCP. 287 for Trump, 245 for Republicans,
and then for 538, 312 for Trump, 226 for Democrats. As always, this
is just my analysis, just my opinion, and I would love to know yours in the comments
below. What do you think about these numbers? Um, let's take a look at the, uh, 2020 misses.
and the 20, excuse me, the 2016 misses. Uh, 538 missed by, uh, 5 percent in the
blue, blue states. Uh, and then, uh, RCP, uh, by 2, 2. 5%. Do you think they're going
to miss again? Or do you think that 2024 is going to be more accurate. Uh, let me know
your predictions in the comments below. If you haven't already, please be sure to give me
a thumbs up. I know it's a simple thing to ask, but it really does help me and the algorithm
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