Nate Silver: checked claims

Scores by kind of claim

Each kind of claim is scored on its own, out of 100: the share that held up, with the range it likely falls in. Fewer resolved claims give a wider range.

Factual claims

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

82 76 88

High confidence, 63 factual claims resolved. From 19 documents, 2012 to 2026; 19 documents sampled from 35 candidates found.

Not scored: 42 unresolvable, 7 checkable only against their own records.

See the factual claims
Predictions

Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?

61 47 75

Medium confidence, 16 predictions resolved. From 8 documents, 2015 to 2025; 19 documents sampled from 35 candidates found.

Not scored: 12 unresolvable. 10 more fall due later.
Does not yet allow for how likely each prediction was when made.

See the predictions
Promises

Commitments to the person's or organisation's own future action, with something to deliver: was it delivered?

67 46 85

Low confidence, 5 promises resolved. From 4 documents, 2022 to 2025; 19 documents sampled from 35 candidates found.

Not scored: 7 unresolvable.

See the promises

All types combined: 77 (likely 72 to 82, high confidence), from 84 claims: 63 factual claims, 16 predictions, 5 promises. It mixes kinds of claim in different proportions for different people, so compare people kind by kind.

Nate Silver's claims

163 claims · page 2 of 2

163 claims, sorted by newest said. Choose a claim to read it in full.
Verdict	Kind	Said	Claim	Topic
Mixed	Factual	6 Jun 2022	Senator Susan Collins voted against Trump's position about one-third of the time, including voting to impeach him, and has voted with Biden about one-third of the time. Factual · 6 Jun 2022	AI policy and governance
Mixed	Factual	27 May 2022	Forgiving all student loan debt is quite unpopular with the public in polls. Factual · 27 May 2022	Economics and markets
Research failed	Factual	27 May 2022	Forgiving some student loan debt is reasonably popular. Factual · 27 May 2022	Economics and markets
Unresolvable	Factual	24 May 2022	In May 2022, Silver said Trump was not that far ahead of DeSantis in polls, and that it was pretty even once name recognition was accounted for. Factual · 24 May 2022	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Factual	21 May 2022	Joe Biden's approval rating never had a spike. Factual · 21 May 2022	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Prediction	29 Jun 2021	It seems very likely that people who received one dose of the J&J COVID vaccine would benefit from a Pfizer or Moderna booster. Prediction · 29 Jun 2021	Biosecurity
Resolved true	Factual	26 Jun 2021	If a very high percentage of a group is vaccinated, a fairly high percentage of infections may be among vaccinated people even if the vaccines are highly effective. Factual · 26 Jun 2021	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Factual	22 Jun 2021	A group of scholars convened by Democracy to rewrite the constitution added a wealth tax but did not clarify the presidential line of succession beyond the VP. Factual · 22 Jun 2021	AI policy and governance
Unresolvable	Factual	21 Jun 2021	Eric Adams has led on initial preference in 13 consecutive polls of the NYC mayoral primary. Factual · 21 Jun 2021	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Factual	16 Jun 2021	The risk of a vaccinated young person getting severely ill from COVID is incredibly low, though not zero. Factual · 16 Jun 2021	Biosecurity
Resolved true	Prediction	11 Jun 2021	The US could see a rise in COVID cases because of the Delta variant, as in the UK. Prediction · 11 Jun 2021	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Factual	10 Jun 2021	The New York Times has a pretty striking negativity bias in its COVID coverage, even relative to other outlets. Factual · 10 Jun 2021	Philosophy, ethics and society
Resolved true	Factual	9 Jun 2021	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. Factual · 9 Jun 2021	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Factual	8 Jun 2021	The 2020 election forecasts by Nate Silver's team were largely accurate and well-calibrated despite a bad year for the polls. Factual · 8 Jun 2021	Their own work or organisation
Unresolvable	Factual	30 Mar 2020	Biden leads Sanders by 19 points in FiveThirtyEight's national Democratic primary poll average as of 2020-03-30, basically unchanged over several weeks. Factual · 30 Mar 2020	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	29 Mar 2020	As of 2020-03-29, the UK has tested about one-sixth as many people as the US and its detected case count is about one-sixth as high. Factual · 29 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Resolved true	Factual	29 Mar 2020	The Netherlands considered a herd immunity strategy and its case fatality rate is now 7% as of 2020-03-29. Factual · 29 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Mostly true	Prediction	28 Mar 2020	The coronavirus peak in the NYC metro area will probably come sooner than elsewhere in the US. Prediction · 28 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Factual	28 Mar 2020	Italy has increased coronavirus testing considerably over the past several days as of 2020-03-28. Factual · 28 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Factual	27 Mar 2020	As of 2020-03-27, detected coronavirus cases are increasing faster in red states than in blue states. Factual · 27 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Prediction	27 Mar 2020	Almost nothing Joe Biden does in the next few weeks will matter much for the November 2020 election. Prediction · 27 Mar 2020	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	27 Mar 2020	As of late March 2020, the UK has a considerably higher coronavirus death rate than the US, with similar positives per capita. Factual · 27 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Factual	27 Mar 2020	As of 2020-03-27, blue states have more detected coronavirus cases than red states. Factual · 27 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Prediction	26 Mar 2020	Experts expect about 117,000 reported coronavirus cases in the US by Sunday 2020-03-29. Prediction · 26 Mar 2020	Biosecurity
Unresolvable	Factual	30 Sep 2019	A new poll shows support for impeachment way up and the share who strongly approve of Trump also up, with overall approval roughly unchanged. Factual · 30 Sep 2019	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	30 Sep 2019	Two new Democratic primary polls released on 2019-09-30 show no negative fallout for Biden from the Ukraine story, and the HarrisX poll has him gaining a couple of points. Factual · 30 Sep 2019	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Factual	29 Sep 2019	Margins of error in individual state and national primary polls on support among black or Hispanic voters are often very high, for example around +/- 10%. Factual · 29 Sep 2019	Science and research methods
Resolved true	Factual	27 Sep 2019	Democratic primary delegate allocation is highly proportional, and a candidate eventually needs a majority of delegates to win. Factual · 27 Sep 2019	AI policy and governance
Mostly true	Factual	26 Sep 2019	In the Democratic primary, a candidate who gets under 15% in a given state or district receives no delegates. Factual · 26 Sep 2019	AI policy and governance
Unresolvable	Factual	26 Sep 2019	Pete Alonso's 2019 season is basically the closest season ever to Cecil Fielder's 1990 season. Factual · 26 Sep 2019	Other
Mostly true	Prediction	25 Sep 2019	Nate Silver guessed that the public would see the contents of the Ukraine call transcript as very inappropriate conduct and would find the White House's quid pro quo spin unresponsive to their concerns. Prediction · 25 Sep 2019	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Prediction	25 Sep 2019	In what he called a first, possibly imprudent reaction, Nate Silver said it was hard to see how President Trump would not be impeached, given that the call transcript showed him pressuring Ukraine on Biden. Prediction · 25 Sep 2019	AI timelines and forecasting
Resolved true	Factual	23 Sep 2019	Bernie Sanders polled at 11% in the highest-quality poll of Iowa released the weekend of 2019-09-21/22. Factual · 23 Sep 2019	Their own work or organisation
Mostly true	Prediction	23 Sep 2019	Nate Silver said he still tended not to think public opinion on impeaching Trump would move much, but that it was hard to know. Prediction · 23 Sep 2019	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	9 Nov 2016	Had Clinton done 2 percentage points better across the board in 2016, she would have received 307 electoral votes and the polls would have called 49 of 50 states correctly. Factual · 9 Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Mixed	Factual	Nov 2016	The 2016 polling error was modest and in line with historical polling errors, yet large enough to give Trump many paths to victory. Factual · Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Resolved true	Factual	Nov 2016	FiveThirtyEight's final 2016 forecast, issued early on election Tuesday evening, gave Trump a 29 percent chance of winning the Electoral College. Factual · Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Factual	Nov 2016	The main reason FiveThirtyEight's 2016 model gave Trump a better chance than other models was its assumption that polling errors are correlated. Factual · Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	Nov 2016	Inferences from early voting data have a fairly bad track record in predicting election outcomes, including in 2016. Factual · Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Unresolvable	Factual	Nov 2016	Most mainstream journalists would have given Trump much lower odds than the 30 percent chance FiveThirtyEight gave him. Factual · Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Mostly true	Factual	Nov 2016	Clinton significantly underperformed her polls across the Midwest and Rust Belt in the 2016 election, costing her the Electoral College. Factual · Nov 2016	AI timelines and forecasting
Resolved true	Factual	11 Oct 2016	FiveThirtyEight's forecast of Clinton's chances is based on objective analysis of polling in presidential elections dating back to 1972. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	11 Oct 2016	FiveThirtyEight's forecast gave Trump only a 20 percent chance of winning given his polling numbers at the time of the second debate. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Other
Mostly true	Factual	11 Oct 2016	The two scientific polls after the second 2016 presidential debate showed a Clinton win, but a more marginal one than after the first debate. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Science and research methods
Mostly true	Factual	11 Oct 2016	Silver said that all the scientific polls after the first 2016 presidential debate showed Clinton had won by a pretty emphatic margin. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Science and research methods
Resolved true	Factual	11 Oct 2016	Scientific post-debate polls showed voters thought Clinton did better in the second 2016 presidential debate. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	11 Oct 2016	Silver said he thought "we" had the team, then playing in the NLDS, at "a 35 percent chance or something" of winning the three series in a row it still needed, and that the figure was rising. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Other
Mixed	Factual	11 Oct 2016	Other forecasts gave Trump even lower chances than the 20 percent in Silver's forecast with numbers like those: five or ten percent. Factual · 11 Oct 2016	Other
Unresolvable	Factual	2016	If the model were calibrated only on presidential elections since 2000, Clinton's chances would rise to 95 percent and Trump's fall to 5 percent. Factual · 2016	Science and research methods
Mostly true	Factual	2016	The t-distribution in FiveThirtyEight's model mostly makes a difference for very low-probability events. Factual · 2016	Science and research methods
Mostly true	Factual	2016	In 2012, Obama beat his polling by 2 or 3 percentage points in almost every swing state. Factual · 2016	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	2016	FiveThirtyEight's models give Trump a 15 percent (polls-only) and 17 percent (polls-plus) chance, about twice the NYT Upshot's 8 percent. Factual · 2016	Science and research methods
Mostly true	Factual	2016	FiveThirtyEight's model is based on a combination of state and national polls. Factual · 2016	Science and research methods
Mostly true	Factual	2016	FiveThirtyEight's polls-only model gives Clinton an 85 percent chance of winning and its polls-plus model gives her 83 percent. Factual · 2016	Science and research methods
Mostly true	Factual	2015	Donald Trump's overall favorability ratings in 2015 are about 30 percent favorable and 60 percent unfavorable, and have not improved. Factual · 2015	Other
Resolved true	Factual	2015	With 75 percent of Republicans not voting for Trump, a candidate can still hold the plurality so long as the "no" vote is divided among a sufficient number of alternatives. Factual · 2015	Other
Resolved false	Prediction	2015	Donald Trump will not win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Prediction · 2015	Other
Mostly true	Factual	2015	In presidential primaries, endorsements and party elite support tend to be more reliable indicators of eventual success than early polls. Factual · 2015	Other
Mostly true	Factual	2015	Of Lieberman, Clinton, Giuliani and Perry, only Clinton came close to winning the nomination. Factual · 2015	Other
Mostly true	Factual	2015	Even this far out, national primary polls have some correlation with outcomes: a candidate near the top is a somewhat better bet to win the nomination than one near the bottom. Factual · 2015	Science and research methods
Unresolvable	Factual	2015	A pitcher's high school statistics do not reveal very much, and their predictive power tends to be swamped by other indicators. Factual · 2015	Science and research methods
Resolved false	Prediction	2015	In all likelihood, Trump could not win the Republican nomination with only a plurality of votes or delegates, because the Republican Party would unite against him. Prediction · 2015	Other
Resolved true	Factual	2012	In a 2012 interview, Nate Silver described himself as being somewhere between a liberal and a libertarian. Factual · 2012	Their own work or organisation

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Nate Silver

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Factual AI policy and governance Political

“Collins voted against Trump about 1/3 of the time—including voting to impeach him—and has voted with Biden about 1/3 of the time.”

Nate Silver, writing on X 6 June 2022 Post by @NateSilver538 on X, 2022-06-06 (X)

Senator Susan Collins voted against Trump's position about one-third of the time, including voting to impeach him, and has voted with Biden about one-third of the time.

Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

Use FiveThirtyEight's 'Trump Score' and 'Biden Score' trackers (or equivalent vote studies) as of June 2022. 'About 1/3' means roughly 28–38%. The claim has three parts: (1) Collins voted against Trump's position about a third of the time; (2) she voted against Trump in impeachment proceedings; (3) she voted with Biden's position about a third of the time. Her vote to convict at the February 2021 Senate trial counts for part (2): calling a conviction vote 'voting to impeach' is a minor wording slip. TRUE: all three parts hold. MOSTLY TRUE: all three hold in substance, but one figure is a little outside the range (e.g. 25–27% or 39–42%), or only the impeach/convict wording is off. MIXED: one of the two percentage figures is clearly wrong (e.g. her Biden agreement was well above 50%) while the other parts hold. MOSTLY FALSE: both percentages are clearly off, but the impeachment part holds. FALSE: the figures are far off and she did not vote against Trump at any impeachment trial.

Evidence

U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 117th Congress - 1st Session U.S. Senate · 13 February 2021
“Collins (R-ME), Guilty”
Political positions of Susan Collins - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“FiveThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional votes, found that Collins voted with President Trump's positions about 67% of the time as of November, 2020.”
Political positions of Susan Collins - Wikipedia Wikipedia
“During the Biden presidency, as of February 2022, FiveThirtyEight found that she has voted with Biden's positions approximately 75.6% of the time.”

Reasoning

E2 cites FiveThirtyEight as finding that Collins voted with Trump's positions about 67% of the time as of November 2020. That means she voted against him about a third of the time, so part (1) holds. The Senate roll call (E1) records Collins voting "Guilty" at the February 2021 impeachment trial, and the criteria count this for part (2). E3, also citing FiveThirtyEight, gives her agreement with Biden's positions as about 75.6% as of February 2022. That is far outside the 28–38% range, so part (3) fails and the outcome is mixed.

Cite this claim

Nate Silver, “Senator Susan Collins voted against Trump's position about one-third of the time, including voting to impeach him, and has voted with Biden about one-third of the time.” (said 6 June 2022). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_840b1d4b31d2, method 0.1.0+28da144b. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_840b1d4b31d2

Claims without a verdict

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