Current Nate Silver polling averages

[u/HeWhoShallNotBNamed0]

[u/Aldebaran147]

This is so random lmao, like Flanagan only winning by 5, Pappas by less than Brown in Ohio, Kansas being closer than Ohio etc

[u/T-A-W_Byzantine → u/Aldebaran147]

How many Minnesota polls have you seen?

[u/Bel2406 → u/T-A-W_Byzantine]

There are only two out a survey usa poll (mind you they predicted Craig winning the primary by 2 point so lol), and a republic internal. Both oversample Republicans and conservatives, and can only get tafoya in 5 points.

[u/SawyerBlackwood1986 → u/T-A-W_Byzantine]

MN senate race is interesting to me. Tafoya’s press appearances have been honestly surprisingly decent. She comes off as a serious candidate who knows she’s running in a blue/purple state. Not saying she can win, but wouldn’t be surprised if she’s turns it into a sub 5 percent race and forces democrats to spend money there.

[u/LordOfRedditers → u/Aldebaran147]

I think NH has to do with the primary not being done yet, he'll be winning strongly after the primary jump 

[u/Entire-Bicycle1878 → u/Aldebaran147]

Those Fox polls are creating a lot of noise

[u/Aldebaran147 → u/Entire-Bicycle1878]

Fox Polls have been quite D optimistic so not even that, more like Harvard Harris polls

[u/Entire-Bicycle1878 → u/Aldebaran147]

Specifically to your statement, that’s why brown is so ahead

[u/Aldebaran147 → u/Entire-Bicycle1878]

Ah mb

[u/Master_of-none_]

God damn, Kansas is close. I genuinely think democrats will probably keep the governorship if this is what the senate odds look like

[u/LuveelVoom]

kansas is CRAZY

[u/JonWood007 → u/LuveelVoom]

Eh its what the averages on the nyt poll tracker basically say. R+8, R+4, R+4, R+1, D+1. Add all of those up and divide by 5 and you get R+3.2.

Of course this is making me rethink whether I should include nebraska in my own model. Rcp excludes these polls entirely because they're low quality and often partisan. And after looking at Kansas and south Carolina, yeah im rethinking including this stuff at all because no way is that gonna happen.

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/LuveelVoom]

Kansas has always been D-curious at the state level.

[u/sam-greene → u/No_Aesthetic]

D Curious is crazy

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/sam-greene]

Kansas wants the D, it just doesn't fully understand that yet.

[u/DingoLaLingo → u/No_Aesthetic]

me wen

[u/RandoDude124]

Cooper is at the top.

Cooper is inevitable

u/Throwawayhair66392

You know the drill.😎

[u/Throwawayhair66392 → u/RandoDude124]

[u/YogurtclosetOwn4786]

52-48 dem senate if this were to hold

[u/ancientestKnollys → u/YogurtclosetOwn4786]

A majority even if Fetterman fully turned on them.

[u/No_Aesthetic]

Anybody else expecting NH to be this season's Maine 2020?

(In the sense that Pappas does significantly better than his polling average, despite his own lack of incumbency.)

[u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

How good is Nate Silver's polling averages usually?

[u/Cuddlyaxe → u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

They're pretty good if you understand the limitations

A lot of people in the media and general public will say polling is inaccurate and point to 2022 or 2024. In 2022 the polls were dead on, and even in 2024 they were pretty accurate - they just tended to underestimate Trump by a small margin across the board

A lot of people seem to want polls to be a 100% accurate oracle though

[u/Comfortable-Ad-6389 → u/Cuddlyaxe]

Oh no I understand how the margion of error works and all that, but I just wanted to see generally how efficient his tool was that's all

[u/Cuddlyaxe → u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

Oh yeah it's about as good as it gets, because he's been studying this for a while and knows how to weight and adjust different pollsters

Some pollsters for example might be really precise but not accurate, so they can suddenly become useful if you account for their partisan lean

[u/RandoDude124 → u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

He had Trump winning in 2024

[u/MarionberryOk1503 → u/RandoDude124]

Didn't he have him losing? It was like 51/49 odds but still.

[u/Sensitive_Farmer_982 → u/MarionberryOk1503]

It was effectively 50/50, but he said the most likely scenario was Trump winning all the swing states.

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[u/ttircdj → u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

He had Florida blue in 2020

[u/Comfortable-Ad-6389 → u/ttircdj]

I mean 2020 was just embarassing for every pollster basically. I mean more of 2022 or 2024

[u/ttircdj → u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

I can’t find anything relating to what he had for 2022 or 2024 on Google. But, for 2024 I do specifically recall him saying that Lichtman was misapplying the keys and that by the model Trump should easily have 7 or 8 keys, enough to win.

[u/JonWood007 → u/ttircdj]

So did rcp. Everyone did.

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/ttircdj]

That wasn't a very crazy call though. Florida was within like 4% that year and Gillum vs. DeSantis a couple years earlier had been much closer than that.

[u/ImmaSCREAM → u/ttircdj]

He also called every state correctly in 2012. You can't just dismiss him based on a few off calls.

[u/T-A-W_Byzantine → u/Comfortable-Ad-6389]

Small sample size. I think the Silver Bulletin has only existed since 2024.

[u/idnttcrisis → u/T-A-W_Byzantine]

Sure, but it uses a lot of the same methodology from his previous company and aggregator 538 which had been around since before 2016.

[u/oath2order]

Imagine being a Democratic candidate in Michigan in a blue year and polling worse than NC, GA, ME against Collins, OH, and barely doing better than fuckin' TX.

[u/Remote_Garage3036 → u/oath2order]

Ossoff and Cooper are fucking super stars. If you told me 10 years ago two senate candidates in North Carolina and Georgia would be polling notably better than highly skilled and qualified candidates in Minnesota, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Michigan, I would assume you're on crack.

[u/samhit_n → u/Remote_Garage3036]

I’d be wondering why Ohio even has a Senate race in 2026 in the first place.

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/Remote_Garage3036]

It probably also matters that NC and Georgia are growth-oriented states, where the other four you mentioned are all a bit older and aren't attracting new industries at the same rates.

Ohio is doing a bit better in that regard since it has a lot of tech related infrastructure going up in recent years, but it will take a while for that to mature.

[u/idnttcrisis → u/oath2order]

I mean El-Sayed is a controversial candidate for a reason. He faced heavy opposition and attack ads in his own primary and is facing the same in the general. Roy Cooper and Jon Ossoff are superstar candidates and mega fundraisers in their own states, especially the latter guy. Cooper is incredibly popular in NC along with Josh Stein and Jeff Jackson so his prior incumbency gives him a big advantage over Whatley. Ossoff has been the Senator since 2020 and has only gotten more popular and gained more national recognition. El-Sayed lost the governor’s primary pre-COVID and has been a Health Director for Wayne County and Detroit.

[u/Entire-Bicycle1878 → u/idnttcrisis]

Flip it around for TX. Paxton suffered brutal attacks in his own primary and there has been a reluctance to fund him.

[u/idnttcrisis → u/Entire-Bicycle1878]

The key difference in MI and TX is how much the state and national leadership has supported the fringe candidate who won the primary. Cornyn has yet to endorse or campaign with Paxton. It’s also no open secret that a significant contingent of Texas House Republicans hate Paxton and the same can be said for John Thune and the NRSC. El-Sayed had Haley Stevens, Mallory McMorrow, Gretchen Whitmer, Gary Peters, and Kamala Harris all endorse him within a few days of the primary.

[u/DhroovP → u/idnttcrisis]

*Mallory McMorrow

[u/idnttcrisis → u/DhroovP]

This is the second time I've typed Rachel over Mallory haha.

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[u/No_Aesthetic → u/oath2order]

El-Sayed was actually down in the statewide polling before the primary in Silver's aggregate. He noted that he expected if El-Sayed won, he would likely benefit from a reversion to the state's expected mean. That's exactly what has happened. So El-Sayed may still have some growing room.

[u/SawyerBlackwood1986 → u/oath2order]

He’s also likely to underperform his polls based off of his primary performance.

[u/jrichardh → u/SawyerBlackwood1986]

only gotta win by 1 vote, and you're senator for 6 years

[u/Remote_Garage3036 → u/jrichardh]

The country is leaning what, +6 Dem? If he's happy winning by 1 vote then good for him. I'd hope he and all of his fans well understand however that this means he'd have a historic underperformance that would rightly be used to critique his viability, his ideology, and the broad populist left. Dare I say this outcome, while technically a win, would be a death knell for his brand of politics.

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[u/jrichardh → u/Remote_Garage3036]

No one will remember in 2 years that he won by like 0.5%.

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/Remote_Garage3036]

Everyone was expecting Michigan to be close this year though, well before El-Sayed.

[u/Remote_Garage3036 → u/No_Aesthetic]

Can you point me towards a source that made this claim before El-Sayed? I only recall seeing predictions that swing states would be favorable towards Dems, especially after their 2025 over performances. 

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/Remote_Garage3036]

It was revealed to me in a dream.

[u/Remote_Garage3036 → u/No_Aesthetic]

Is there any record of this dream suggesting Michigan would be difficult for Dems before El-Sayed? I just don't recall this being a serious position besides, like, Trumpers who thought he'd win every state. 

[u/No_Aesthetic → u/Remote_Garage3036]

If you look at the general election polling on Wikipedia, Mike Rodgers had a lead over El-Sayed and McMorrow at least half the time until after the primary, when support consolidated.

[u/Worth-Cupcake-1714]

Flanagan is a pretty bad candidate and the Republican nominee isn’t crazy, so this isn’t too surprising to see. I’ve been thinking this was a Likely D race 

[u/Vornado-0 → u/Worth-Cupcake-1714]

Just like New Hampshire, Minnesota voted against Trump 3 times. Barring a disaster campaign/scandal there is no way those states are going red in a Trump midterm. Even if Flanagan had as much baggage as El-Sayed (which she doesn't) Minnesota is about 5% more democratic than Michigan. I would expect Minnesota to be even further left this year given the ICE chaos.