Nate Silver

Factual · Philosophy, ethics and society · Political

“If anything, there was too little panic from Team Blue about 2016, which was dismissive of polls showing a tightening race down the stretch run and a tenuous Hillary Clinton lead in the Electoral College.”

Nate Silver, author of Silver Bulletin · 9 October 2024 · When you should panic about the polls (Silver Bulletin)

Silver said that, if anything, there was too little panic among Democrats about 2016, and that they were dismissive of polls showing a tightening race late in the campaign and a tenuous Hillary Clinton lead in the Electoral College.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

The second judge said mixed; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Judged on the factual content as of 9 October 2024; the 'too little panic' judgement is opinion and is not graded on its own. True if the evidence shows that (a) national and swing-state polls tightened in the final weeks of the 2016 race (e.g. Clinton's polling-average lead shrank in late October to early November 2016), (b) Clinton's Electoral College position in poll-based models was fragile (e.g. narrow leads in tipping-point states), and (c) prominent Democrats, Democratic-aligned commentators or the Clinton campaign broadly downplayed these signs or treated a Clinton win as near-certain. Mostly true if (a) and (b) hold and (c) holds in substance but was not universal. Mixed if only one or two of the three hold. Mostly false if polls did not meaningfully tighten or Clinton's EC lead was not tenuous by contemporary measures, with only minor support for the rest. False if the evidence shows the race did not tighten and Democrats were widely alarmed about it.

Evidence

1. The presidential race has tightened. Clinton still leads. Democrats should still worry. Vox · 31 October 2016

   “With the presidential election eight days away and October surprises dropping right and left, the polls have tightened just enough to give Democrats some anxiety — though not yet enough to give Donald Trump a good chance of victory.”

2. AN EVALUATION OF 2016 ELECTION POLLS IN THE UNITED STATES AAPOR Ad Hoc Committee on 2016 Election Polling

   “The polls on average indicated that Trump was one state away from winning the election.”

3. The Great Democratic Freakout Hasn’t Started — Yet BuzzFeed News · 15 September 2016

   “They remain publicly confident Hillary Clinton isn’t in danger of losing the election come November, dismissing recent polling showing Republican Donald Trump up as a blip”

4. The final polls point to a Hillary Clinton win. Will they be right? Vox · 8 November 2016

   “Now that the final batch of polling is in, Clinton’s national margin is at 3.3 points in the RealClearPolitics average, 3.5 points in FiveThirtyEight’s model, and 4.6 points in HuffPost Pollster’s average.”

Reasoning

Criterion (a) is supported: Vox reported on 31 October 2016 that the polls had tightened in the final stretch (E1), and Clinton's final national margins were only about 3–4.6 points (E4). Criterion (b) is supported by AAPOR's review, which found that the polls on average showed Trump one state away from winning (E2), so Clinton's Electoral College position was fragile. Criterion (c) holds only in part. BuzzFeed reported in September 2016 that Democrats stayed publicly confident and called pro-Trump polls a blip (E3), but that was before the final stretch, and E1 says the late tightening gave Democrats "some anxiety". So the dismissiveness was real but not universal.

Cite this claim

Nate Silver, “Silver said that, if anything, there was too little panic among Democrats about 2016, and that they were dismissive of polls showing a tightening race late in the campaign and a tenuous Hillary Clinton lead in the Electoral College.” (said 9 October 2024). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_5b60f7eef08a, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_5b60f7eef08a