00:29:25 · Joe Weisenthal, Nate Silver, Nate Silver
[00:29:25] S3: But you talk about the Hamilton race in Kansas and what that would, yeah. [00:29:29] S2: So Kansas, I have family in Overland Park, right? And for years it's been like, you know, Roger Marshall could be in trouble and I kind of never really believed them. Like, yo, it's Kansas. Kansas has low-key gotten a bit more democratic. It voted democratic on this abortion referendum. It elected Laura Kelly as governor twice. You know, Roger Marshall has these medical billing practices that are very unflattering. And like Adam Hamilton would be like, oh, we just want cheaper gas and integrity in California. In Kansas, right? And like that pitch might catch kind of the opposite. It's a relatively elastic state, right? There are opinions that can change. It's pretty well educated. So like, yeah. And, you know, last week, CNN had a poll showing Hamilton up four points in Kansas. But like, yeah, Kansas is one. Like, I have more trouble with believing the South Carolina polling than the Kansas. [00:30:16] S3: But basically, there is certainly a possibility that the day after election day, You're going to be like, look, you and Matt Yglesias are going to be like, look at Kansas. Democrats are right to nominate the middle ground white guy. And the DSA people are going to say, look, we are right to nominate. AES wins by nine points. He has a great night, like the polls say. And you just keep fighting. [00:30:40] S2: No, this is like it's a fairly clean national experiment. [00:30:44] S1: Yeah.
00:30:44 · Nate Silver, Nate Silver, Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal
[00:30:44] S1: Yeah. [00:30:45] S2: Natural experiment, Michigan. I went to there. You know, there's never been a Muslim American elected to the U.S. Senate. So there are. reasons apart from his progressivism, why Elsa could struggle or be good. I mean, you know, he's bro-y, right? He doesn't come across as like, he's bro-y in a very Michigan way. He doesn't come across as like- I was going. [00:30:59] S0: To say, also, it's Michigan versus Kansas, right? It might be that you like fit the candidate onto the state, right? [00:31:06] S2: And Michigan's a, uh, You know, they have a strong gubernatorial nominee in our favorite in that race. I don't know if there's some degree of coattails or something. But, yeah, all we're going to, you know, from November 4th onward, the story of the next year and a half is going to be party infighting. [00:31:20] S3: What about this? Like, isn't there something going on like Florida AG or there's some race in Florida, right, where some socialist seems to be polling well? Do you know anything about that? [00:31:29] S2: Well, I mean, in the Senate race. [00:31:31] S3: Is it governor? [00:31:32] S1: Is it Senate? [00:31:33] S3: What's happening in Florida? [00:31:34] S2: In the Senate race, you had a DSA... Democrat Angie Nixon. [00:31:37] S3: Angie Nixon. Oh, she's running for Senate. [00:31:39] S2: She's running for Senate, and she's not polling that well. I mean, she's, yeah, Florida, one thing we should probably account for in our models is net domestic migration, right? [00:31:50] S1: Okay.
00:31:50 · Nate Silver, Nate Silver, Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway
[00:31:50] S1: Okay. [00:31:50] S2: The models keep missing low on Florida because you have a steady flow of red voters into the state, and we're using benchmarks based on the last election, but Florida's a moving target for that. [00:32:01] S3: It's interesting, if you look at polymarkets, because I keep pulling them up as we mentioned them. And everyone has shown a little bit of a bump for the Democrat in the last several weeks. So Mississippi, South Carolina, quite a big one. Annie Andrews at 28%, which is way higher than she was just a few weeks ago when it was at 13%. No bump at all in Florida. Angie Nixon is at 10%. And that's actually lower than where she was during much of the summer. [00:32:28] S2: Yeah, and this follows polling, right? The New York Times had some polling that was very strong for Democrats, but not in Florida. They had Ashley Moody ahead by six or seven or something. [00:32:34] S0: To what degree are prediction markets just like reflecting polling now? [00:32:37] S3: Yeah, talk to us about that. [00:32:39] S2: I think they're reflecting polling plus sentiment in kind of a, it's somewhere between smart and midwit. [00:32:51] S1: Right?
00:32:51 · Nate Silver, Nate Silver, Joe Weisenthal
[00:32:51] S1: Right? [00:32:52] S2: So again, people in prediction markets do have to quantify ultimately their price, right? And I think that exercise is helpful. When they go play poker, they can be like, oh, I think that guy might be bluffing. I'm saying, I say, well, I'm getting two to one from the pot, right? Last decision I have to make, do I think is a greater than a 33% chance or not? Like, I think the prediction markets have a slightly Republican-leaning clientele, right? Like Democrats are a little preachy about them sometimes. Republicans have more money, right? [00:33:21] S3: Well, we saw the famous, like, huge whiff in the L.A. mayor race where, like, Spencer Pratt, like, who in their right mind thought a Republican was going to win a mayorship at a major U.S. [00:33:30] S2: City? Yeah, but, like, they have, like, these, like, the recognition that polling error is correlated, like we talked about at the top of the show. That's an important recognition to have. The markets were actually overconfident relative to my model in 2016 on Hillary Clinton, right? So everyone knows that, but, like, I think The belief that, oh, polls always underestimate Republicans is not the most sophisticated version of that necessarily. [00:33:55] S3: Is there anyone systematically making money? I mean, I'm going to put you on the spot here or the Silver Bulletin on the spot. But do you feel that someone could make money? betting on prediction markets anytime there's a deviation between silver bulletin model for a given race and the prediction market?
00:33:55 · Joe Weisenthal, Nate Silver
[00:33:55] S3: Is there anyone systematically making money? I mean, I'm going to put you on the spot here or the Silver Bulletin on the spot. But do you feel that someone could make money? betting on prediction markets anytime there's a deviation between silver bulletin model for a given race and the prediction market? [00:34:14] S2: Well, look, I would say when our model came out on August 11th, we moved the markets by several points, right? And so like, if you have markets that can look at our model and are influenced by our model, also look at other models, right? And on top of that, incorporate some degree of vibes. I mean, I helpful. They can also just get to things faster, right? If there's a scandal, the New York times reports, on Thursday morning, then it will take several days to show up in the polling, right? And so like, yeah, I mean, I went through recently and looked at every race where you have a gap between Flipper, my model, and Polymarket. And like, I agree with Polymarket on half of those, you know, although ironically, some of the ones I agreed with, I'm like, oh yeah, Flipper's way too high in South Carolina. And then there's this good poll from South Carolina that brings, you know, so maybe you're kind of arguing it to yourself a little bit, but like, yeah. So the test would be like, you have to create like some type of laboratory environment where prediction markets, aren't allowed to look at polls. And my expectation is that prediction markets would be extremely terrible.
00:35:10 · Joe Weisenthal, Nate Silver
[00:35:10] S3: Well, it seems like actually the test would be, you would want to have prediction markets that aren't allowed to look at models, right? Because of course they're going to look at- Fair enough. Right? Because ideally you wouldn't want the day the silver bulletin numbers drop to influence the prediction markets. Ideally, you're looking at polls and creating a model and prediction market traders are looking at polls and creating a price- And the question is, which is the better way to derive a probability? [00:35:38] S2: Yeah, look, and like building a simulation with all these regional correlations is tricky, right? We are like, as of when we're recording this, we are like literally like 0.995 correlated with polymarket on individual states. We have the overall democratic win probability a bit higher. You know, I don't know if that's because it's attracting a different type of trader, right? Like that, like you get maybe more of the you know, the whales, right? Not like the French whale from 2024, but like whales, like degenerate rich guys with a lot of money to burn, right? [00:36:11] S3: The dream. [00:36:12] S2: Whereas they're maybe less likely to invest in individual races. But there's really not that much of a gap, right? [00:36:20] S3: You've been building models for a really long time. And of course, you first sort of became a household name in 2008. So that's 18 years ago. [00:36:28] S2: That's crazy. [00:36:30] S3: So that means there are people who are going to be voting in this election that were, like, born during the Obama administration.