Celebrated pollster Nae Silver in an op-ed for the New York Times wrote that his “gut says” that former presidnet Donald Trump will be winning the November 5 election. “But don’t trust anyone’s gut, even mine,” came his statutory warning. Nate wrote that the only responsible forcast of this tight race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump is 50-50 but people are asking him what his gut says.
“So OK, I’ll tell you. My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is tru for many anxious Democrats,” Nate wrote. “But I don’t think you should put any value whatsoever on anyone’s gut — including mine. Instead, you should resign yourself to the fact that a 50-50 forecast really does mean 50-50. And you should be open to the possibility that those forecasts are wrong, and that could be the case equally in the direction of Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris.”
Gut feeling is intuition and Nate said he is not against gut feeling which plays a larger role in poker. “But poker players base that little something on thousands of hands of experience. There are presidential elections only every four years. When asked who will win, most people say Mr. Trump because of recency bias — he won in 2016, when he wasn’t expected to, and then almost won in 2020 despite being well behind in the polls. But we might not remember 2012, when Barack Obama not only won but beat his polls. It’s extremely hard to predict the direction of polling errors.”
Shy-voter theory
Nate explained the shy voter theory which is applied to Trump’s voters which means the voters are shy to reveal that they are voting for Trump. Adopted from British election trend, it is believed that people do not want to admit to voting for conservative parties because of the social stigma attached to them. But Nate wrote that it is not true in US and if anything, there’s less stigna to voting for Trump that ever.
Bradley effect/Hillary effect
Silver wrote it is believed that voters do not say they won’t vote for a Black candifate but they say that they are undecided. This is known as Bradley effect, named after former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley who underperformed his polls in teh 1982 California governor’s race. But this was not a problem for Barack Obama. Still, the only other time a woman was her party’s nominee, undecided voters tilted heavily against her. So perhaps Ms. Harris should have some concerns about a ‘Hillary effect’,” Silver wrote.
“A surprise in polling that underestimates Ms. Harris isn’t necessarily less likely than one for Mr. Trump. On average, polls miss by three or four points. If Ms. Harris does that, she will win by the largest margin in both the popular vote and the Electoral College since Mr. Obama in 2008”
While almost all polls are saying that it would be a tight race, Silver said it could also be possible that pollsters are herding toward a false consensus and one of the candidates may get a massive and bigger win.
