ClaimsNate Silver

“Biden leads Sanders by 19 points in our national poll average.”

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight, on X 30 March 2020 Post by @NateSilver538 on X, 2020-03-30 (X)

Factual AI timelines and forecasting Political

Biden leads Sanders by 19 points in FiveThirtyEight's national Democratic primary poll average as of 2020-03-30, basically unchanged over several weeks.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

True: FiveThirtyEight's national Democratic primary polling average on or about 2020-03-30 showed Biden leading Sanders by about 19 points (18–20) and the lead had stayed roughly stable over the previous several weeks. Mostly true: the lead was within about 2 points of 19, or it was 19 but had changed somewhat over those weeks. Mixed: the lead figure is right but it clearly was not stable, or the reverse. Mostly false: the lead differed by 3–6 points. False: the lead differed by more than 6 points, or Biden did not lead.

Set before the research began.

Evidence (9)

  1. E1 Joe Biden wins the Arizona primary Vox · 17 March 2020

    “As of March 17, FiveThirtyEight’s average of national polling data showed Biden with a whopping 25-point lead and with about 52 percent support.”
  2. E2 Joe Biden up to 96% chance of winning nomination in FiveThirtyEight forecast Raw Story · 10 March 2020

    “Polls similarly show Biden leading Sanders by an average of 25 points, according to RealClearPolitics.”
  3. E3 2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination | RealClearPolling RealClearPolling

    “| RCP Average | 3/29 - 4/7 | — | 60.8 | 32.0 | Biden+28.8 |”
  4. E4 2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination | RealClearPolling RealClearPolling

    “| Reuters/Ipsos | 2/28 - 3/2 | 469 RV | 18 | 29 | Sanders+11 |”
  5. E5 2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination | RealClearPolling RealClearPolling

    “| Reuters/Ipsos | 3/18 - 3/24 | 1981 RV | 53 | 34 | Biden+19 |”
  6. E6 Wisconsin primary election: April 7, 2020 Vox · 7 April 2020

    “Heading into the primary election, Biden has held a firm lead over Sanders, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls, which had the former vice president at 53 percent support and the Vermont senator at 36 percent.”
  7. E7 DemDaily: Presidential Pause and Polls - DemList DemList · 31 March 2020

    “According to a *RealClearPolitics* average of six national polls conducted between March 18-March 30, 2020 of Democratic primary voters, former Vice President Joe Biden is leading Bernie Sanders 56.3% to 35.3%.”
  8. E8 Infographic: Biden Has Clear Lead Over Sanders, Trump Statista · 31 March 2020

    “In an aggregate of new March polls, Biden is leading Sanders by 21 percentage points with just a couple months before the Democratic National Convention.”
  9. E9 Dems' Roller Coaster Steadies as Center & Center-Left Take Over | RealClearPolitics RealClearPolitics · 18 March 2020

    “With his impressive win in Nevada, Sanders’ lead grew to 12.2 points the day after the primary.”

Reasoning

None of the evidence gives FiveThirtyEight's national average on or about 2020-03-30. E1 reports a 25-point Biden lead in that average on March 17, and E6 reports 53% to 36% (17 points) heading into the April 7 Wisconsin primary. Those figures bracket the claimed 19 points but do not confirm it, and filling in the March 30 value from them would be a guess. The other items are RealClearPolitics averages, other aggregates or single polls (E2, E3, E5, E7, E8), not FiveThirtyEight's average. The FiveThirtyEight figures in the evidence (a 25-point lead on March 17 [E1] and 53 to 36 percent on April 7 [E6]) fall either side of the claim date. They do not show the March 30 value or whether the lead held steady in the weeks before it, so neither the 19-point figure nor its stability can be checked against the evidence.

Cite this claim

Nate Silver, “Biden leads Sanders by 19 points in FiveThirtyEight's national Democratic primary poll average as of 2020-03-30, basically unchanged over several weeks.” (said 30 March 2020). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_fdada6e39b4f, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_fdada6e39b4f

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

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More factual claims by Nate Silver

  1. Resolved true Factual 8 September 2023
    “It’s not hard, for instance, to find polls from this point in 2015 showing Hillary Clinton with double-digit leads over Trump.”

    Polls from around September 2015 can be found showing Hillary Clinton with double-digit leads over Donald Trump.

  2. Mostly true Factual 21 May 2022
    “There was never any spike in Biden's approval rating.”

    Joe Biden's approval rating never had a spike.

  3. Resolved true Factual 9 June 2021
    “This is the pollster that had shown a big bounce for Garcia before, so either that previous poll was an outlier or her momentum has been usurped by Wiley.”

    A pollster that earlier showed a big bounce for Garcia has now shown a result implying either that the earlier poll was an outlier or that Wiley has taken over her momentum.

  4. Mixed Factual November 2016
    “Instead, there was a modest polling error, well in line with historical polling errors, but even a modest error was enough to provide for plenty of paths to victory for Trump.”

    The 2016 polling error was modest and in line with historical polling errors, yet large enough to give Trump many paths to victory.

  5. Mostly true Factual November 2016
    “The single most important reason that our model gave Trump a better chance than others is because of our assumption that polling errors are correlated.”

    The main reason FiveThirtyEight's 2016 model gave Trump a better chance than other models was its assumption that polling errors are correlated.

All of them

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