Whatever it is, he should explain.
Using Nate Silver’s poll weights and poll percentages for all South Carolina polls I calculate Republican Darline Graham has a 2.86 percentage point lead over Democrat Annie Andrews.
Graham Leads by How Much?
Fortunately, there is only one page and seven polls to analyze.
Just looking at the above page one can wonder “How the heck did Silver get Graham 1.8 points ahead out of that?”
My lead chart calculates the actual results.
House Effects
Nate Silver’s House Effects explains the discrepancy. If he thinks a pollster is biased then the applies house effects but never says what they are.
I believe this applies to Rasmussen Reports with reason, and Trafalgar with no legitimate reason.
If he posted his house effects we would know precisely what he believes the biases to be.
Revised Margin
Legitimate Transparency Issue
When an aggregator applies systematic adjustments to individual pollsters (shifting Rasmussen or Trafalgar left, Impact Research right, etc.) before weighting, the final published numbers will diverge from a simple weighted mean of the unadjusted percentages.
The influence weights can still be accurate and the arithmetic internally consistent once those adjustments are applied; the problem is that the adjustments themselves are invisible. This is a legitimate transparency issue.
If the influence figures and the raw poll numbers are displayed, readers can (and will) recompute the weighted average. When the result doesn’t match the headline figure, the only way to resolve the discrepancy is for the site to publish the house-effect adjustments (or the adjusted percentages) that were used.
Without that, the posted average cannot be fully audited from the data shown.The same point applies regardless of whether any particular pollster’s adjustment is large or small: the calculation should either add up from the numbers on the page or the page should show the numbers that do add up.
Dear Nate Silver Let’s Discuss Trafalgar
Flashback November 6, 2024: Dear Nate Silver, Might I Suggest “High Quality” Pollsters Be Based on Accuracy
Once again, AtlasIntel and Trafalgar were the two most accurate pollsters based on margins.
You-Gov, allegedly high-quality was anything but. The same can be said for New York Times/Siena with Democrats winning North Carolina and Nevada.
Both NC and NV will be hugely out of the NYT/Siena stated margins of error.
Accuracy Assessment
Calling the winning state accurately is not the best measure. Rather, the best measure is how close a call is vs the final result.
AtlasIntel was closest on 4. Traflagar was closest on 3.
I seriously considered adopting the average of AtlasIntel and Trafalgar as my model. It is why I included that line in the first place.
But I didn’t. Instead I averaged in Nate Silver and Real Clear Politics. A big mistake.
Silver can [brag] about being within margins of error because +-3 he was within margins of error in most states. And did manage to beat “High Quality” NYT/Siena in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia.
Congrats?
Seat-of-the-Pants vs Silver
My seat-of-the-pants method had one advantage over Silver.
From February on, I repeatedly stated Trump would dramatically outperform on the youth vote and black vote vs 2020.
He did, by amazing margins.
And that is why I put all the battleground states in Trump’s column except for Michigan which I got wrong as did Trafalgar.
On a win-loss basis, I beat Trafalgar but Trafalgar posted more accurate numbers on average, and that’s what’s really important.
Silver has on many occasions blasted Trafalgar because he doesn’t know what they are doing.
But what the hell is Silver doing?
Maine vs South Carolina
Deluxe vs Lite South Carolina
Are Democrat chances in South Carolina almost as good as Republican chances in Maine?
Really?
In Silver’s Lite Model, Democrats have a 38.7 percent chance of winning South Carolina whereas Republicans only have a 29.9 percent chance of winning Maine.
Q: How do you go from 38.7 percent in the Lite Model to 24.9 percent in the Deluxe Model?
A: More house impacts.
I do not object to this, but I do object to the lack of transparency on pollsters and poll margins.
Nebraska Is a Hoot
Based off polls, Nate Silver gives Democrats a 49.4 percent chance of winning Nebrasksa.
Silver does not believe that, and neither do I. But it’s possible.
Regardless, Silver translates those polls into 69.9 percent chance Republicans win in his Deluxe Model.
Don’t get me started on Iowa, but I think Silver is too optimistic at 59 percent. And I think Silver is too low on Alaska at only 63.5 percent. Silver is 52.1 percent on Kansas.
I am reluctant to go higher due to lack of polls and specific concerns over Maine, Iowa, and Michigan.
Texas Senate Nate Silver
Silver Deluxe gives Democrats a 70.9 percent chance of winning Texas
I am not going to go through six pages of polls to see how far off that posted 2.5 percent is from an actual mathematical calculation.
For starters, page four goes back to June which I find ridiculous, but so does Silver given the June weights are 0.1 percent.
The earliest poll with a weight of 0.10 or higher is from August. I would toss it. But this is largely nitpicking. Silver’s weights overall seem reasonable.
The most encouraging things for Democrats are the Traflagar, Fox News (Beacon Research, and Marist polls.
The most discouraging thing is the more recent InsiderAdvantage poll that shows Paxton in the lead.
Betting Markets
- Alaska: 75 percent Democrat
- Iowa: 59 percent Republican
- South Carolina: 84 percent Republican
- Kansas: 64 percent Republican
- Texas: 62 percent Democrat
- Democrats Win Senate: 63 percent
I agree with the betting markets on Alaska, South Carolina, and Texas. I agree with Silver Deluxe on Kansas, and have Iowa a genuine tossup (about the midpoint of Polymarket and Silver).
Seat of the Pants
I use betting markets, polls, and my own economic expectations. It was my inflation expectations, tariff expectations, and labor market expectations that I figured would give Republicans grief.
Trump’s idiotic war sealed the deal.
For about a month I have had Democrat odds of winning the Senate at 65 percent.
In this election, my seats of the pants analysis got to a Blue Wave forecast and a 65 percent Democrat winning the Senate expectation faster than Silver or the betting markets.
Today, Silver Deluxe gives Democrats a 76.1 percent chance of winning the Senate. But how much does his house edge play into that? We have no idea how to parse it by pollster.
Silver, after being 10 points behind me most of the year is now 10 points ahead of me on Democrat odds of winning the Senate.
With a dearth of quality polls I am reluctant to go over 65 percent.
Related Posts
October 15, 2026: Who Is Favored to Win the Senate in 6 Different Models
Here are 10 Senate races in 6 models, one of them mine.
October 16, 2026: Trump Has a 91% Disapproval Rating from Voters Under 30 on Inflation
“The worst I have ever seen in any poll, on any issue for any president”
October 19, 2026: Republicans Have a Huge Gap in Ad Spending, But Does It matter?
The Republican cash edge is entirely in the Senate. The House is a lost cause.
Trump just announced an $8B bailout for farmers. It will probably help him in farm country.
Seems like Mish giving way too much airtime to Nate Silver here. Nate’s horse rode off a decade ago, and I am surprised he still makes a living doing this same thing. I moved on, he isn’t worth my mental space. Ignore those who aren’t sufficiently capable and you get smarter.
I think Trafalgar needs to explain what they are doing. They incorporate a “social desirability adjustment” but they’ve never explained what that is. What that does, however, seems to make Trafalgar more subject to if Trump is on the ballot or not. What seems apparent is that 2022 was an awful year for Trafalgar with some pretty bad misses that overstated the GOP’s strength.
They overstated the GOP on average badly in 2022 but also a little bit in 2024 and 2025, so with Trump not on the ballot again this year, a leftward house adjustment is probably logical if you don’t know what the hell a “social desirability adjustment” is or how it’s likely to impact the result.
At least Silver can articulate what his house adjustment is supposed to be.
Obviously I’m a fan of his “let the numbers speak” approach.
Trafalgar had some misses but top-rated Siena NYT had more.
I don’t mind Silver making House Adjustments.
My beef is we have no idea what they are.
If you subscribe, he goes into a fair bit of detail on how he does it. He doesn’t share his math, but there’s enough detail that you could probably get pretty close to his figure if you had the time, energy and a rich stats background. It’s a subscription based business model for him, so of course he’s not going to go completely open kimono.
Trafalgar is actually much more opaque. And intentionally so. It seems likely that he’s modeling somewhat simplistically a general polling error but then gets hammered like in 2022 when the polling community was generally pretty decent. I think they’re taking a dangerous shortcut there and it bites them badly periodically.
“House effects” sounds like “Nate sticks his finger in his mouth, then holds it up to feel the breeze.”
I think this is an almost unprecedented cycle with both parties in upheaval. Trump is cratering and spiralling in the face of backlash from all sides, including demos that got him elected. The DNC establishment’s being crushed by DSA populists. Both are seen as too close to Israel and the datacenter oligarchs, for good reason. If the polls tell us anything over the years it’s that voters doesn’t care about parties so much as their pocketbook, and that Rs and Ds increasingly don’t care about them.
As for Silver, when is the last time he got a call right?
Trafalgar record was poor in 2025:
Virginia governor: Its final poll underestimated Spanberger’s margin by roughly eight points.
Virginia attorney general: Its prediction missed the Democratic candidate’s eventual margin by about seven points.
New Jersey governor: Its poll showed an essentially close race, while Sherrill won by nearly 14 points.
In 2022, in Washington state, Trafalgar underestimated Murray’s winning margin by approximately 13.5 points.
WTI just went over $104.30 as midnight approaches…
So much for making a deal with Putin against long term sanctions and the law.
Laughing at Trumps stupidity is getting boring.
Plain and simple, Trump is a Russian asset.
No, plain and simple, he’s a narcissist. And a carnival barker. He has no loyalty to anyone or anything aside from his own image.
Trump endorses Bibi and Bibi replies “thanks, Donald. We have a job to finish.”
If you like the war on Iran and want it to escalate, vote republican. I can’t believe that is a majority opinion. I think democrat candidates will outperform the polls.
The masses were not fixated on Iran nukes, Trump trumpeted, and suddenly this was justification for damaging so much we have now.
Unbelievable, the dog-like mental passivity of these people. It reflects their mental shallowness, and their repressed desperation. Or perhaps laziness: to outsource their processing of events to someone like Trump. They pile their personal plate high, with fixations on vacations and luxury goods and such, and have no cognitive reserve to process events. Cue Mencken. Or some are simply bought by the redistribution of value.
If you want to know who will wield power next year, the Forbes list is a better indicator than the ballot box, because the people on that list fund both candidates, shape both platforms, and staff both administrations. But the list alone isn’t enough. What matters are the communities of interest (COIs) behind it: people who share preferences and their network. If billionaires #5 and #6 swap places but belong to the same COI, the COI retains approximately the same power. Little or no turnover in the leading COIs translates to little or no turnover in policy.
Elections measure preferences, but mostly on issues that don’t bind oligarchs. They can hire armed bodyguards regardless of local gun control, fly their daughter to a pro-abortion state, and buy tariff-free goods in their foreign homes. Those fights are real for everyone else. But the wealthy route around the outcomes. What concerns them is money (tax rates, exceptions, stepped-up basis), civil or criminal business laws/regulation (that never curtails their activity while binding others), and endless deficit spending that fuels their businesses and eases the carrying cost of their business loans. That’s the layer elections rarely touch in a way benefiting everyone else. Which is why the leading indicator isn’t the ballot box. It’s the Forbes list and the COIs they belong to.
Every dollar you spend is a vote for the kind of economy you want to live in. Before you spend, you might think about where your money goes and whether the people who receive it share the world you’d like to live in.
Imagine how many blue voters are sending their money to help Paxton win Texas, thanks to their past purchases of a Tesla vehicle.
I think SC is being underweighted for Democrats personally. Darlene is running a terrible campaign and the most recent polling shows her up by, yep, one point (see below). I’d give her ~60% odds myself, as the yard sign game is heavily Andrews flavored.
SC has been filling up with out-of towners year after year and Darlene faces a major issue with being seen as an outsider by locals. We liked her brother, but she clearly ain’t him. Not helping is the fact that there is a massive Ukrainian background population (citizens) who are unamused by her waffling and Trump’s idiocy. That does not help him. Blacks, Latinos, and farmers in the mid state are also mobilizing unlike ever before, as farm country was rattled by ICE raids.
SC depends heavily on farming in the midstate being unmolested, and Trump’s assault on farmers is understated here.
A victory for dems in SC would be less Annie Andrews winning (though she is running a decent campaign) and more a rejection of outsider attempts to meddle in a very insular state’s politics. South Carolina does not like the federal government, and Darlene has been stumping for datacenters and an unpopular Trump nonstop. I could see her losing, even if it’s not my first hunch.
https://insideradvantage.com/insideradvantage-south-carolina-senate-graham-leads-by-one-point/
https://blog.fiftyplusone.news/p/where-are-all-the-polls
The above article is also worth a read. The lack of public polling this year is historically low. I think there will be surprises on the third.
Darlene only being up +4 suddenly after 4+ polls of her breaking even is suspect to me, especially since it’s coming from two Republican leaning pollsters. Especially seeing as one of the break even polls is from Trafalgar themselves. I’m not buying that she jumped three points given her abysmal campaigning and data center shilling, since the data center debate is an outsized issue. If she does win I predict it won’t be by much.
Thanks – good read.
Lack of polls is why I am reluctant to go over 65%.
Yet my single most likely outcome is D+6 followed by D+5 then D+7
There are 7 Cook Political Tossup but in my book 5 of them are no worse then tilt D
Finally, it is much easier to envision the poll underweight Dems by 2 than overweight them by 2.
This is not Trump vs Hillary
Ever since potus won over hitlary, when at that time she polled 10 plus point ahead?
Polling is strictly for entertainment and gambling purposes.
Well don’t be shocked by D+7 in the Senate because I won’t
Nor will I.
I’ve read your analyses, but I don’t think D+7 is going to happen. I have a feeling (yes, just gut instinct here) that the polls are fatally flawed. I think the polls are incapable of overcoming the bias in their collection methods. I’m not saying they’re purposefully biased, but that they will never fundamentally be able to properly measure Republican turnout or sentiment. Even if they adjust, they are adjusting on a very poor sample.
You should start placing bets since you think everyone else is wrong.
Have you bet on the Democrats?
The Dem Leadership isn’t even voting for Dems. Dems urged to ‘leave it blank’ to stop Abdul El-Sayed | Finley.
Can’t win when your leaders can’t stand you…
Imagine how rich he will be if he is right about the world and puts his life savings on that bet?
Yes, the GOP is saying that the polls are simply wrong and to back it up provide info on new voter registrations which favors the Repoblicans
Yes, a lot of things have changed since the old days when a Democrat would be up +2 and could count on a win. The GOP has a much better ground organization, mail-in-vote operation, more money, etc. GOP voters don’t talk to poll operators in ANY format. They don’t answer the phone, they don’t respond to emails, and they don’t answer text messages. There is literally zero way to capture many of these GOP voters. Democrats will always express their opinion (whether we want to hear it or not) because this is how they are wired.
They are indeed.
There is no doubt polling has been made extremely difficult because of cellphones, but there is this belief among Republicans that polling can only be wrong in their direction. There is some very accurate polling that casts that core belief in serious doubt. Democrats have overwhelmingly out performed Republicans, including in heavily Republican states and districts, since Trump took office in his 2nd term.
I see your point, but when the “Democrat Leadership” tells their Democrat constituents NOT TO VOTE in Michigan for El Sayed, that’s not a poll, but a Fact. This also tells you The Leadership within the Democratic Party would rather lose Michigan, than win it with Him in charge of it. They want out of the mess they caused, but it may be too late for them to decide that now… Unless of course, if the Republicans trounce them as they self destruct… my guess!
The primary vote is fact. He won it.
As if that matters!
How many Rotating Villains(tm) do you want?!
Your description about the blue team doesn’t sound any different than what the red team has been doing lately
They’re all crooks, you’re silly if u think the red team isn’t a bunch of wing nuts too
Honestly, I’m just looking for downvotes. I hear there is a record here, somewhere, and I’d like to break it!
Start opposing “help” for the Ukraine. The reflective downvotes will pour in – and you’ll be called a Russian bot.
Lol. The crew here has changed over the years. I was on this blog years ago, when it relatively more conservative. Pre-Trump, I believe, although that’s so long ago, I can’t remember.
The main voices on here now have a lot of certainty that they are absolutely right about everything and very little tolerance for any kind of disagreement. Almost like college kids.
Yes, Mish let his site get taken over by lefties. As with many boomers or older genxers, he appears to want the Reagan era back and has had many temper tantrums and TDS moments over the direction the GOP has gone in the last decade. He would rather just have the DNC take over America but he doesn’t have the guts to say so. But the editorial slant of this site makes it clear. These types of guys are why the left advanced so far in this country in the first place.
There’s a lone upvote for you in this Leftist wilderness.
Keep up the good work of pointing out the obvious, and you will be amazed at how many you will receive!
These people voted for Biden & Kamala… Nuff said!
Superiority complexes in the comments section, how special. I see you’re working your way up the Maslow scale of self-realization, making mad progress today.
Just pointing out the obvious. Polls were very wrong, Dem leadership is getting cold feet, money will play a huge roll, and the Senate stays Republican (this time) no matter what polls appear to state, at the moment, last month or last year. It just is what it is, if you look straight…
I thought my comment was stating what didn’t seem obvious — at least to the others on this site.
There seems to be a widespread belief (including by our author, Mish, of whom I respect) that it’s going to be a “blue wave” and that the polls back this up. My point is that the polls have done a miserable predictive job in the past 10 years, and then I explained (further down) why I think that is so.
So downvote away. It honestly doesn’t matter to me. I generally like economics people, and people who like to talk about it. But the leftists here are a bit repugnant and closed-minded.
60% of people who work in tech and finance in Silicon Valley and NYC are leftists according to you. Sure thing bro.
Yes, there were some bad pollsters, but top 5 were pretty good as you see below, nothing like 10 point miss. If Rs never answer polls then how were these pollsters so accurate – random numbers?
2020 Pollster and avg error
Pollster
Average error across qualifying polls
AtlasIntel 2.2 points
Trafalgar Group 2.6 points
Rasmussen Reports / Pulse Opinion Research 2.8 points
Harris Insights & Analytics 3.3 points
Opinion Savvy / InsiderAdvantage 3.5 pts
2024 better results
Rank
Pollster
Average error
1 AtlasIntel 0.8 points
2. Rasmussen Reports 0.9 points
3 Quantus Insights 1.0 point
4 Suffolk University 1.2 points
5 (tie) Trafalgar Group 1.6 points
5 (tie) InsiderAdvantage 1.6 points
Most of these pollsters have swing states with +1.5 for D, so all tied up in Senate, but usually all will swing one way or the other. Billionaires and Trillionaires pumping in $500B in last month for R will probably buy up votes.
If you confident you should sell all your houses and bet big on R using prediction markets.
I agree with you, but not all of them. I have had some great back and forth with a few exceptions.
They seem to have to be right, even after they have been proven wrong. They also live on past data, whether it was wrong or right. Blinders to messaging that refutes there claims, as it’s simply deemed unacceptable.
Nobody knows for sure what the end result will be, but it sure looks like it’s leaning strongly for Republicans overall. Not to say they win everything, because that’s not realistic, but I see them heavily favored more and more, as polls show themselves to be unworthy of what’s really going on.
Fake polls are great for pushing an agenda, but terrible in delivering the results they falsely spew. I just don’t see Dems anywhere close to where they think they will end up.
Some Dems in leadership are calling for them to vote for Republicans in some cases. Now that’s pretty sad, but tells you more of the true direction the overall leadership is fighting for. Many in both circles Do Not want to buy what’s being sold… this is slowly but surly backfiring on the Dems as I see it. I could be terribly wrong in my assessment as well, but it sure seems to be leaning that way imho…
Likely one of the repugnant leftists here. From my vantage point, the views here are similar to most reasonably educated groups – e.g. all over the proverbial map. Definitely to the right of me as a rule. Mish himself is a bit eclectic but solidly in the libertarian orbit. Also a little contrarian, but you have to be a bit contrarian to get eyeballs on your site. If you’re not saying something different than the rest, then you’re not offering much value.
I don’t think I’d bet on a massive polling error this year. Off year polls have been reasonably accurate with the errors being more or less on either side. Since errors seem to be correlated and from year to year consistently overestimate the same side, I think it’s easy to look at them and say they did a poor job, but that’s just how correlated error rates work. I also don’t think it’s wise to look at the last 10 years and assume pollsters just sat on their hands and didn’t try to improve on past performance.
Really,, the disgruntled-toward-Trump votes are not simply the straw man stereotypes that “Business Man” so smugly thumbs his nose at. His self-congratulation at being so smart (in his mirror) is what is blaring. I.e., wanking.
There are plenty of business persons not quite so favored (as of now) by the Big Beautiful Bill.
Lol, what?
I just don’t like Leftists. I think they are economically illiterate, and many lack real world business experience. Almost none have ever managed a payroll. Most favor more government and less business. They don’t understand how wealth is generated, and they don’t understand the root of prosperity.
I would be willing to engage them and share more, but these people are so full of hate and rage that it’s nearly impossible to have a civilized conversation. For example, I don’t even know you, yet you personally attacked me. You don’t even know me, nor do you understand the breadth of my experiences.
The good news is that it doesn’t matter. At least not to me. I’ve grown to expect Leftists to be vicious and mean-spirited, which is why I give it back.
States with small governments are easy to find. GDP per capita:Mississippi: $55,877West Virginia: $61,873Arkansas: $63,703Alabama: ~ $65,300Kentucky / Idaho / others: Ranging from $66,000 to $70,000
So uh, the argument is that Trump will keep shitting himself and the economy? Very clever businesswoman! I’m sure a few more comments about senator’s asses will help a lot!
Which university do you attend?
You make it sound like rage against Trump and the republicans isn’t thoroughly warranted. He betrayed his main campaign promises.
I think that’s fair, but 1) Trump is no longer on the ballot (regardless of what he says), and 2) what exactly is your “rage” against Republicans, and which ones? It is either because you are a Democrat, in which case you have always “raged” against Trump and Republicans, so nothing has changed, or because you are truly a Republican, in which case you are angry at the GOP, but do you want to enable the DSA and the crazy Democrats again?
As much as I don’t care for Trump, I will not vote against my policy choices. I am not voting for the GOP because I think they are cool or I like them. I’m voting for my policy choices and against what the Left stands for.
Much merit to some of what you suggest. I strongly agree in fact, with much of it! Did the R’s throw enough, with enough, to sway the needle where they needed? Too late with the big $ or nicely played? D’s too damn boisterous once again, and R’s much quieter?
I don’t know, and as Mish likes to say — nobody knows. We will know in a few weeks. What I think is that it might surprisingly land more on the GOP side, because polling is actually not that bad, and I think the polling is totally getting it wrong this time.
As someone else said, I’m stating the obvious again, so perhaps this is downvote material? Should I say something stupid like, “Democrats are brilliant!” and would that get me lots of those cherished upvotes?
This site is full of Democrats and the line of thinking that can come from that. There are some on the other end, but the numbers are not even close.
I was the down vote record setter, if you will. Mish pointed this out to me. He did so in good fashion, and I think he aligns with me on some issues, but overall he seems to lean left as well.
It’s been a fantastic place to converse about the vastly different situations going on, in what seems daily. Most are fair and willing to discuss logically. While many are also, jump down your throat, hair is on fire types. It’s a fun place to learn what people are actually thinking, as Mish does a great job hitting the right buttons for all to partake in…
Stick around for awhile and enjoy the banter, as it does get quite interesting now and again. Have a great day!
Never underestimate the power of the purse. With the bootlicker gone as speaker and opposing party control of Congress a lot of Trump’s abuses can be reined in…
Irony is the the Democrat candidate for Michigan’s senate seat said on ABC News that Israel is not an ally to the USA and it can’t be trusted. Does he know who is the female senator from Michigan and also her background ? I wonder if she and Schumer will reign him in so that interview is the last he’ll say about his concerns about the Zionists.
A lot of Americans have been reevaluating their stances on Israel over the last 2 years, including many Jewish Americans.
Turnout for Trump events is not what it once was. I’ve read the comment section on foxnews and many who claim to have voted for him three times are not happy. The latest with him buying diesel from Russia, just about every comment was negative.
I can believe that. I don’t like his Ukraine policy, either, but I understand it. He is thinking purely transactionally. He doesn’t care about Ukraine but cares about potentially turning Russia into an ally. It reduces a major geopolitical force allied against us. He is also thinking about energy prices and removing an ally of Iran, of whom he truly does not like.
So what are these hidden Team R advantages?
Five paragraphs of “just you wait!”
Polls must be off by two dozen points
Quickly: Money, ground game, gerrymandering, DOJ surveillance of election machinery, greater scrutiny on voter rolls — these are all mostly election machinery gains, not political gains. I am saying that the media is focusing on the political losses, but not looking under the hood at what the GOP has one to catch up to the Democrat machinery. It is significant in some areas.
where is my check??
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5996901
Those fools who believed this argument in the first place either knew this was a lie or are economically illiterate