00:00:02 · Tracy Alloway, Nate Silver, Nate Silver, Joe Weisenthal
[00:00:02] S0: Bloomberg Audio Studios. [00:00:04] S1: Podcasts. [00:00:05] S2: Radio. [00:00:06] S1: News. [00:00:18] S3: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. [00:00:23] S0: And I'm Tracy Alloway. [00:00:24] S3: Tracy, I often say, I'm really glad we're not political reporters. [00:00:29] S0: Oh, I know. [00:00:29] S1: I know. [00:00:32] S0: I'm glad that I wake up every morning and thank God that we didn't. [00:00:35] S3: Go down that path. But here's the problem. I've said this many times. Here's the problem. And we've been writing about this. [00:00:42] S2: We didn't. [00:00:42] S3: We were in Chicago. We had that conversation with James Robinson and stuff like that. I sort of think politics, unfortunately, does matter. And actually, even if we wanted to say like, no, look, I just cover markets. I just cover the economy. Unfortunately, I'm coming to the conclusion that not only do politics matter, they're probably going to keep mattering more and more. [00:01:02] S0: Everything is politics now. You can't get away from it. [00:01:04] S2: It feels like it, yeah. [00:01:05] S0: And certainly this week. So we're recording this on October 29th. The episode is going to come out on November 3rd. [00:01:12] S3: It's Election Day special. [00:01:13] S0: That's right. [00:01:14] S3: You're listening to our Election Day special. [00:01:16] S0: It's a pretty big week for politics. So we should talk, to put it mildly. To put it mildly. I know, I know.
00:01:16 · Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal, Nate Silver
[00:01:16] S0: It's a pretty big week for politics. So we should talk, to put it mildly. To put it mildly. I know, I know. [00:01:22] S3: Anyway, let's just jump right to it. Joining us here on our Election Day special, Nate Silver. Everyone knows him. Founder of the Silver Bulletin newsletter, famous for 538, modeling elections, knowing a lot about polling and data and all that stuff. Nate, thank you for joining our Election Day special. [00:01:39] S2: Of course. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Tracy. [00:01:40] S3: Let's just talk about like how unpopular is President Trump right now as of October 29th or Election Day and to what degree? I mean, midterms historically pretty bad for the party and power, but just get a big picture. How historically unpopular is President Trump and what is the knock-on effects for various Republican candidates in competitive races?
00:02:00 · Nate Silver
[00:02:00] S2: Yeah. So Trump's approval rating is at about 37 percent. By some measures, that's the worst approval rating for a president at a midterm since Harry Truman, I think, in 1946. I'm getting that right. And remember we had a midterm in 2018 where Trump and Republicans lost 41 House seats when he was somewhat less unpopular and where gas didn't cost $ 4. 30 a gallon or whatever it is. So look. I kind of call this the rock versus the hard place election, right? The background conditions couldn't be better for Democrats, right? The historical trends in midterms, voter anxiety about the economy, the Iran war, Trump's a lame duck and 80 years old. They've done really well. And with turnout, they're doing well in early voting so far. They had a very good year in 2025 with New Jersey and Virginia. It's really very consistent indicators. I mean, they might have a couple of problems. Some of their candidates are seen as too far left, right? So that's kind of the rock. And the hard place is, yeah, they'll probably win the House. They'll probably pick up some governorships and state legislatures, but they do have to win in some really red states, just how the math works, to win the Senate, right? States as red as Texas, Kansas, Alaska, South Carolina is in play, if you believe the polls. And so it's kind of this big, I mean, this is why I like, I would say I'm a little bit anxious, not just for the implication for the country, but because like, it's kind of become a tricky race for like models and polls and forecasts, right? There's no... There's no gimme. You either have to lie and say it's a toss-up. That's not an honest answer at this point, right? That's hedging.
00:03:30 · Joe Weisenthal, Nate Silver, Tracy Alloway
[00:03:30] S3: But you have to take a kind of leap of faith that the Democrat could win in Texas. [00:03:37] S2: You have to kind of take a leap of faith on some of this stuff. And a probabilistic leap of faith. But at this point, it would be a really bad night for pollsters if Democrats don't win the Senate. [00:03:50] S0: Just to sort of test our priors a little bit. Everyone's treating this as a referendum on Trump, which kind of like makes me nervous when everyone's doing the same thing. But in your view, is that an accurate way to measure it? Like, do we have hardcore evidence that people are voting on Trump rather than voting on a local representative?
00:03:50 · Tracy Alloway, Nate Silver
[00:03:50] S0: Just to sort of test our priors a little bit. Everyone's treating this as a referendum on Trump, which kind of like makes me nervous when everyone's doing the same thing. But in your view, is that an accurate way to measure it? Like, do we have hardcore evidence that people are voting on Trump rather than voting on a local representative? [00:04:09] S2: I think the best evidence is that Trump is no longer featured in Republican campaign commercials, right? Trump is not being talked about anymore on Republican podcasts. However, Trump himself is trying to make himself like the main character of this story when I don't think very many Republicans want that, right? Ironically, they had this Republican convention, was it in Dallas just after Labor Day? And like, that's when Republican polls kind of went from bad to worse. I don't think that's the main cause or necessarily even the secondary cause. But yeah, I mean, the behavior you'd expect if people are being kind of game theory optimal is that Trump is taking a back seat and trying to let his more moderate candidates distance themselves a little bit. And instead, we've seen the opposite, right? I mean, if Trump hadn't endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas, I'm not sure that James Talarico would have a slight lead there. If Trump hadn't chosen to go to war with Iran, I tend to think the Senate would be a toss up and not lean D. So no, he's the central character. And it's also kind of like, It's kind of like the last time Trump is on the ballot, barring extra constitutional shenanigans.
00:04:09 · Nate Silver, Joe Weisenthal
[00:04:09] S2: I think the best evidence is that Trump is no longer featured in Republican campaign commercials, right? Trump is not being talked about anymore on Republican podcasts. However, Trump himself is trying to make himself like the main character of this story when I don't think very many Republicans want that, right? Ironically, they had this Republican convention, was it in Dallas just after Labor Day? And like, that's when Republican polls kind of went from bad to worse. I don't think that's the main cause or necessarily even the secondary cause. But yeah, I mean, the behavior you'd expect if people are being kind of game theory optimal is that Trump is taking a back seat and trying to let his more moderate candidates distance themselves a little bit. And instead, we've seen the opposite, right? I mean, if Trump hadn't endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas, I'm not sure that James Talarico would have a slight lead there. If Trump hadn't chosen to go to war with Iran, I tend to think the Senate would be a toss up and not lean D. So no, he's the central character. And it's also kind of like, It's kind of like the last time Trump is on the ballot, barring extra constitutional shenanigans. [00:05:15] S3: Yeah, which who knows? Now, this gets to the question of like, could it be a bad night for pollsters? And there is this seems to this view has congealed in the general public that starting at least since 2016, pollsters always overestimate Democrats. [00:05:32] S2: Yeah.