Nate Silver Predicts: Democrats Take the House, Newsom Is Fading & AOC Might Win It All in 2028
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Nate Silver discusses election forecasting, California's voting trends, and political dynamics ahead of 2028, emphasizing partisanship, polling accuracy, and the rise of younger candidates like AOC. He also reflects on t
Key takeaways
- Partisanship drives most U.S. elections with high predictability
Transcript preview
Partisanship is the gravity that dictates every election in the US, right? Like my job, don't worry, I will get criticized if we say, oh, whatever, Gavin Newsom or AOC is a 55% favorite and they lose. But like, but 43 of the 50 states stated, we could probably predict right now with 97% confidence who they'll vote for in 2028. And it's not because of reading, it's because polarization and partisanship are very powerful forces that we can't seem to seem to. to escape from. I'm going all in. Starting a business usually means juggling a bunch of different services just to look legit. Not anymore. With Northwest registered agent you get a complete business identity all in one place, a business address, domain, website, phone number, and more. With privacy protection built in from day one. Don't spend hundreds or thousands on services you can get from Northwest for free. at Northwest Registered Agent.com. slash All In Free. And start using free resources to build your business today. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the All In interview program. We are delighted today to have the one, the only Nate Silver on the program, Gambler, statistician, podcaster, sub-stack, or go subscribe right now for a Hyundai. Quick Hyundai at Silver Bulletin over at Sub-Stack. great sub stack. How you doing brother? Nice to see you with your Nix hat on. I'm good. You know I think I have like one more week to wear the Nix hat. It's a little bulky not super podcast video friendly but I you know once in 53 years once in my lifetime at least. Did you go to any of the playoff games? I went to a bunch of the Philly series I went to I think as Jason did I was in Philly for like the New York City takeover of Wells Fargo Arena where the hell it's called now Infanity or something. I went to the Trump game. I went to the Trump game. I went to the Trump game. I went to the Trump game. I went to the Trump game. I went to the which was not the right game to go to but I wanted to be there I wanted to kind of cover it for my readers I felt like it was a moment where New York might Triumph out of this should show that it was to get into the arena It was a lot to show up what two hours early to get in three hours I am I am not a particularly prompt person no I'm not wasn't gonna miss so I got there at like six so I got there at like six so five for eight 30 game Lined up you're supposed to get in on six avenue in on 29th. It wasn't the worst, it wasn't the least efficient process I've ever seen. New York has a way of getting things done and you just kind of like, yeah, follow people and once you get in, I mean it was like literally TSA security, they like literally like look at your wallet by hand and they take your lighters and and now and your pens and your vapes and everything like that and once you get in it was pretty normal. I did feel like the crowd was a little bit fatigued by the second half, which was a choppy second half where there were there were some questionable decisions. I actually did you bet any of the games and like did you find the odds were off anywhere? I had the Knicks to win the Eastern Conference finals and then after they wrapped up their series I bet them to win the finals against either O'KC or San Antonio so I actually I the ticket was not cheap I paid it would not cover Jason's tickets but I was able to cover my 200 level bowl seat with the profits from from those non-home bets I thought the Knicks were legitimately overlooked in the East and when see a team that wins, like that game against Atlanta where we were up like literally like 77 to 22 at some point or something. Like I'm like, as somebody who like studies the stuff and builds models, to see that kind of signature significance for that level of dominance over whatever it was, four rounds of the playoffs, like that's, that's real. That's like not noise. Do you bet? Do you bet? Do you bet? Big Tony. If you are, if you are, by Draft Kings and and MGM a lot of the traditional retail sports books limit you the prediction markets do not I consult a Poly market I should say so if you're a sharp better I am other issues to leave me with the prediction markets but if you are a sharp better then it becomes easier to just concentrate your activity on the prediction markets where you have very smart people you have hedge funds you're probably making best these markets more and more but yeah more more I don't want to go through the rigmar role of like can even get my money down so I will I will I will I will I will toward those, yes. And when you look at this team, what do you attribute, because obviously during the season, it was up and down, we were 15 games from the end of the season. People are like, hey, we got to trade for Janus, we got to get Kat out of here. But in January, February, we had this incredible run where we had used Kat as the point center. And then we backed off of it. And I was on Nix fan TV talking with like the real deep folks. And there was speculation like they figured it out, they figured it out, and they figured it out and they figured it out and they figured it out and they figured it out and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, and they're like, play. Mike Brown said, let's hold Kat at the point from, you know, until the playoffs because we know it works so good. But what makes this team so special? Is it the wings? Is it just Brunson's grit? Is it the three-point shooting across the team? Selflessness, ball movement. There's so many things people talk about here with this team. I think it's Mike Brown and Kat. I'm not saying the most important components of the Knicks. Those are the deltas where things changed the most. On. On. On defense, a couple, a couple of things, a couple of things, a couple of things, a couple of things, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a couple of, a Number one you have, I love Jhelan Brunson, might be my favorite player. He's not a terrific one-on-one defender, he gets a few seals, but like he's undersized, the low center of gravity somehow doesn't work on defense as well. But like every other defender of the Knicks, including towns, which is a dissented point of view, are at least average, if not better. And so like kind of figuring out that system, by the way, when you rely on defense, it requires high effort and transition play, not playing your guys 37 minutes, against Charlotte Hornets in the regular season, probably a smart move. Yeah, this is why Tim's had to go. When you look back on it, Tim's going, who ground these guys into submission for three seasons and they were, yeah, it was like we were down one, two or three starters for every round of the previous playoffs. Yeah, I remember going to the Indiana, I guess game seven of the semi-finals in 2024, you kind of see like, O. G. an infirmary ward, and especially because you're relying on smart, high effort defense. So that part of defense, and low-key, they became like a much better defensive team in the second half, right? I remember also going this year to the Nix Nets game in December, January, not the most fun part of the year in New York, where they had lost like seven out of nine games, and there was all the talk about like cat being traded. And I just wanted to go and I just want to go and check out I actually bet on the Knicks to win by like 15 points or more because I thought this is either going to be like the beginning of the end for this regime or it's going to be a turnaround game against you know a team it's trying to lose frankly across town rebels trying to lose and the fans were like pretty tolerant of cat they wound up winning by like 60 points or something totally absurd or held the nets of one of the lowest scores in the modern NBA era and like that team from there they by the way they won the NBA cup they had something like the fifth best defense in the NBA they had the best defense in the NBA in the playoffs maybe not sustainable but like but that on defense and then cat presenting look again like I love Jenlin Brunson the offense can be a little bit predictable maybe in clutch possessions yeah right and it's amazing that Jenlin Brunson he shot like 53% between 16 and 22 feet which is kind of insane given that you know what's coming it's like Marian Rivera is like cut fastball you know what's coming to have more optionality and variety in the offense and to have more ball movement. So to have those two spontaneous things happen, the coaching system led improvement on defense plus like cat having a revelation, like I think he's like one of the 15 best players in the league. He was ready. Yeah, he's a really good player and so those two things combined, you know, a little bit unusual for a veteran team granted, but spontaneous improvement on both sides of the ball. Yeah, he's a really good player on both sides of the ball. Yeah, coupled with the Knicks, by the way, have the most playoff games out of any team in the past four years, more than Boston, more than O'KC, a lot more than San Antonio. There is empirical evidence that playoff experience does matter. This comes up in poker too. If you are in your first big tournament and maybe you're rated the GPI, number one player and you're playing in the main event of the world series of poker, nerves are a thing, even in golf, nerves are a huge thing. It's a physical ordeal, you're operating on a different operating system and to have had experience in a lot of high-stakes games, not all of which were wins, but like it really does, it really does help and when be... Those two comebacks from the Pacers game, from the Boston games, where we just broke their backs last year. That I think made it obvious to anybody. When we're down 10-15 points, that's not a lead against the Knicks. The Knicks are going to come back. We're just that good. And it's just fantastic now that how do they beat the Knicks? We spent the last like five or six years how do we get through Boston how do we get through this team now the entire league has to do that all right we should get started here we got so much to talk about and obviously you specialize in elections we at the mid-turns coming up we're gonna talk about 28 post-Trump world all of that but we just concluded an election an election which I don't want to speak for Dave but you may have seen or heard the podcast where he was like hey this is not illegal but it doesn't like a real election. Take us through what happened in your estimation in California with Spencer Pratt, fraud, just mail-in ballots. Yeah, that was just the LA election, Jason, just to be clear. Yeah, just to go with LA, but go ahead, build on it. The question that I wanted to talk to you about, Nate, is when you look at the in-person return data and then you look at the early mail-in data and then the late mail-in data where suddenly Nipia Raman has this massive surge and there's this huge and there's this huge difference as the ballot start to get counted in the days and weeks that follow, she wins. It seems very improbable that there's a true statistical difference in the population that might, you know, be in person, mail in early and mail in late. And I just wanted to get your read on that. So I'd say I think there's no evidence of fraud is a short summary version. The mistake that can be made is to assume that each ballot like comes in independently when they're systematic differences. groups and when they tend to cast their ballots. So Democrats have long been encouraged to vote by mail. Actually, it used to be more of a Republican thing, but like under Trump who discouraged mail voting in 2016 and 2020 and 2024 to some extent. Like that shifted. So look, I think California's system is completely unacceptable. I've done some consulting work on like the Indian election where you like literally have polling stations in the Himalayas and they actually stagger their election. But once election day happens they count their vote within 24 hours. I think it's ridiculous and very failed state that California takes longer than that. But if you have one party who systematically tends to vote later, also Democrats in both the LA race and the governorship had more of a choice to make. You know, it wasn't clear, you know, for a while, it looked like Eric Swalwell was gonna win and then Katie Porter and then, and then, and then, you know, Becerra finally emerges, like, look, look, is from LA. I spent a lot of time in California and I am all on board with the criticisms of how the state is being governed at least in parts of the state. I was in San Diego for New Year's and beautiful time of year to be in San Diego and like you can like literally run on the sand and the beach and everyone's kind of like hot and you have good fish tacos and everything else. Like that I kind of understood the California of like my youth or my dad's youth or whatever else and the appeal of the state and I understand why LA and SF I think LA in particular kind of never really recovered from the pandemic we can talk about that at the same time it's a very partisan state we have very partisan Democrats like Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom who emerged in the state we saw in the redistricting referendum I guess it was in 2025 how like you can do make it with a good idea or not but like that traced with a Democratic margin in presidential years very strongly even though for many years gerrymandering. It's a capital D Democratic state. It's not an idiosyncratic blue state like Maine or something. And like so like to expect even a very talented Republican like Spencer Pratt to win the mayor ship. I mean even in New York we have a bit more heterodoxy historically we've had a you know socialist mayor we've had Michael Bloomberg and really gee on in recent years too. California is not that way. It's much more of a a machine state. But when you look at that statistical difference, I get the idea that Democrats mail-in ballots and they show up late. But when you look at the overwhelming votes for Nippia-Raman over Karen Bass, that happened late in the counting cycle versus early in the counting cycle and the statistical kind of shift over that happened. And you look at the difference between in-person and mail-in being so statistically different. And I get your point about Republicans are more likely to go in person and you can make that leap there. But the difference