嘉宾访谈·中文精读

内特·西尔弗预测:民主党夺回众议院、纽森势头消退、AOC 或赢下 2028

Nate Silver Predicts: Democrats Take the House, Newsom Is Fading & AOC Might Win It All in 2028

内特·西尔弗谈加州计票迟缓与选票收集争议、民主党三方内战、2026中期选举预测,并押注AOC出战2028。

官方音频00:00 / --:--

本期章节点时间可跳到音频对应位置

  1. 0:00内特·西尔弗做客播客!
  2. 10:02加州计票难题:拉曼的迟寄选票激增、选票收集指控,以及美国为何比印度计票更慢
  3. 25:18民主党三方内战:左翼、丰裕派自由派与纽森的“抵抗派自由派”基本盘
  4. 34:482028 胜选剧本:反寡头叙事、年轻男性为何求掌控、移民逃离民主党
  5. 45:48算法社交媒体如何固化极化:马斯克的 X、过滤气泡与时间线信息流的消亡
  6. 50:012026 中期选举预测:民主党夺回众议院概率 85-90%、参议院悬而未决、伊朗与油价成变数
  7. 55:20纽森民调崩盘:内特的 2028 民主党押注是 AOC
中文精读由 AI 基于原始节目改写,非官方翻译,可能存在偏差或错误;观点归属与表述以原音频与官方文稿为准。说明

50 个州里有 43 个,现在就能以 97% 的置信度说出它们在 2028 年会投给谁。内特·西尔弗(Nate Silver)在 All-In 访谈里给出这个数字时,顺带解释了背后的机制:党派性像一台引力机器,把大部分州锁在固定轨道上,跟有没有人操纵没多大关系。

他这期聊的是加州计票、民主党的三派内战、2026 中期选举,以及为什么他现在押注 AOC 而不是纽森。主持的是杰森(Jason Calacanis),弗里德伯格(David Friedberg)负责追数据。

加州的票数了两周,印度只花一天

洛杉矶市长选举拖了好几周才出结果。Spencer Pratt 一开始领先,随着晚到的邮寄票一批批计入,Nithya Raman 反超获胜。弗里德伯格注意到,现场票、提前邮寄票、迟到邮寄票这三个群体之间的统计差异大得不正常,于是直接问西尔弗怎么看。

西尔弗的回答是:查不到舞弊的证据。

他认为人们容易犯的一个错误,是把每一张选票当成独立个体来理解,忽略了不同群体在投票方式上有系统性差异。民主党长期被鼓励用邮寄投票,共和党过去才是邮寄票的主力,但特朗普从 2016 年起反复劝支持者别邮寄,两边的习惯就此对调。晚到的票偏向民主党,是这种习惯差造成的,不代表有人在背后操盘。

但西尔弗没有替加州辩解。他做过印度选举的咨询,印度在喜马拉雅山里有投票站,选举还分阶段错开进行,可一旦投票日结束,24 小时内就能数完。加州花的时间比这长得多。

我认为这很荒谬,加州数票比印度还慢,这是一种治理失效的表现。(西尔弗)

杰森把具体案例摆上桌:有位叫 Annica Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong 的人,用 3 美元或者香烟换人登记。这类边缘性的、看起来可疑的行为确实存在。但他同时提到传统基金会的数据库,那是一群专门查舞弊的人,能查实的案子只有几千起,属于可以忽略的量级,就算放大十倍二十倍,也翻不动一场大选。

西尔弗承认美国选举高度分散,作为一个反对权力集中的人,他某种程度上认为这是优点。但他也承认,舞弊案例确实存在。2008 年阿尔·弗兰肯赢下的那场参议员选举,重新计票后差距只有两百多票,那种情况永远无法百分之百确定。现实中的护栏是:各州通常有 0.5% 的重新计票门槛,而差距大于 0.05% 的结果几乎从没被翻过,误差也会互相抵消。

真正让他不舒服的是另一件事。你不需要亲自到某个投票站,就能投出你那一票。加州对此太自满,那种「我们要让所有人都投票,所以按我们的方式来」的态度,带着一种傲慢。感知本身就很重要。

弗里德伯格追问得更尖锐:如果不改选民 ID、不改邮寄规则,共和党还有可能在加州赢吗?这套系统是不是被设计成了让民主党建制派永久掌权?

西尔弗没顺着这个方向答,他转向了一个更大的变量。

党派性是引力,43 个州现在就能预测

民主党最近输了那么多场选举,只是在加州没输。西尔弗的说法是,党派性像引力一样,规定了美国每一场选举的走向。

50 个州里有 43 个,我们现在就能以 97% 的置信度预测它们在 2028 年投给谁。跟操纵无关,极化与党派性这两股力量太强,我们似乎逃不出来。(西尔弗)

他很希望看到更多跨党派的人物。新英格兰有查理·贝克,佛蒙特有 Phil Scott,肯塔基有民主党州长贝希尔(Beshear)。加州看不到这种异类。它已经变成了一台机器,也许是因为太大,选民没法近距离接触候选人,也就少了直接的体感。

他对极化本身的判断是负面的:它拉低治理质量,还被重划选区的军备竞赛不断放大。民主党的三角测量策略,也就是「挑一个最不坏的候选人」,在蓝州完全管用,因为大选稳赢,但这套逻辑产不出有竞争力的全国候选人。

他算了一笔账:民主党最近四场大选只赢了一场,就是 2020 年那场百年一遇的疫情。他不认为拜登 2024 年赢了,是哈里斯先输掉了。奥巴马卸任后对独立选民还有 57% 的好感度,拜登只有 20%。

特朗普治下,两党都有一种心态:你不用去说服对面,这就是个算术题。

民主党内部的三派内战

西尔弗把民主党拆成三块。

  • 左翼。代表人物是佐兰·马姆达尼(Zohran Mamdani)、AOC、伯尼·桑德斯。他们都是各自意义上很有效的政治家,但历史上,左翼在深蓝州之外没什么大胜。
  • 丰裕自由派(abundance libs)。以西兹拉·克莱因(Ezra Klein)命名,更亲市场,自己不承认是中间派,西尔弗认为他们就是中间派。他们把加州当成治理失败的样本,批评治安、跨性别议题上的文化战争,关心的是有没有房子、机场打车要排多久队这类硬指标。
  • 抵抗派自由派(resistance libs)。嘴上说受够了民主党建制,实际依旧高度党派化,为蓝队摇旗。他们相信拜登 2024 是被媒体逼退的,或者怪哈里斯是个黑人女性。这是纽森的票仓。

这也解释了纽森为什么要公开力挺拜登夫妇,明明拜登在民主党内部都不太受欢迎,所有人都想翻篇了。他在向抵抗派发信号:我站你们这边,我是个斗士。

杰森总结成一句话,这就是特朗普剧本,从不道歉,主动进攻。

西尔弗承认纽森在重划选区那件事上确实耍得漂亮,是个聪明的战术动作,相当于把冰球往它要去的地方滑。但问题在于,「挑一个最不坏的候选人」这种策略,碰上几乎每场选举都是「变革选举」的年代,已经失灵了。他看向英国:九年内换了六任首相,那可能是美国最接近的参照物。现在不是当现状捍卫者的好时候。

2028 的赢家配方

杰森让西尔弗给任一方写一本 2028 年的剧本,他会写什么。

西尔弗先自嘲了一句:按大多数定义,我是个精英,你们也是,能买得起总决赛第三场的票,大概就是精英。大多数精英说自己社会自由、经济温和,这套立场未必是选举赢家。

他点出一群被忽略的选民:文化上偏保守,经济上偏进步,支持小企业,警惕权力集中,但又不是 AOC 那一路。当世界第一个万亿富翁出现,当 AI 领袖公开放话要替代大批白领岗位,这些人产生的焦虑是真实的,哪怕焦虑的形状不一定对。

他的配方是:来一点反寡头修辞,同时在觉醒议题上收敛。特别是对年轻男性,他们还想感觉自己能掌控命运,但并不想要太多被扶着走。

他对马姆达尼的态度值得记一笔。他说自己不是马姆达尼的选民,但欣赏有人试图弥合裂缝、扩大帐篷,哪怕方向他未必同意。纽约治安比加州好,机场翻新得很漂亮,功劳要记在库莫和一大笔钱上,不是马姆达尼的,但他至少在做那些枯燥的、把事办成的工作,这对一个民主党人或者社会主义者来说反而是意外的。

然后是世代问题。西尔弗 48 岁,他觉得一个想干到 86 岁的候选人,对手想干到 82 岁,这本身就荒唐。他猜最可能赢的民主党人是约翰·奥索夫(John Ossoff),更年轻,翻他的投票记录其实偏进步,但不是纽森那种斗鸡打法。

谁在离开民主党

弗里德伯格抛出一个数字:过去十年美国有 4500 万人从大学毕业,其中很大一部分背着沉重的债务,很难靠增长爬出来。这是他理解年轻人对资本主义幻灭的具体来源。

西尔弗把分界线画在 40 岁左右,这条线每年往后挪一岁。他自己记得冷战结束、柏林墙倒塌,社会主义这个词对他意味着经济失败的历史。年轻人对社会主义这个品牌的感受完全不同。美国依然是极度资本主义的国家,还在吸引全世界最好的人才,AI 资本热潮至少撑着股市。

民主党丢支持最多的是西班牙裔,其次是亚裔。而最近几十年的移民群体,恰好是创业率最高的一群人。他们正在从民主党流向共和党。

弗里德伯格补上解释:这些人是从社会主义国家逃出来的,亲身尝过自由市场带来的经济流动性和真正的自由。反倒是美国中产的第二代、第三代,更容易被社会主义说服。

西尔弗顺手提了媒体结构的变化。过去是三四个大电视网加上《纽约时报》的编前会决定什么是新闻,现在彻底碎片化。手机和社交媒体对年轻人满意度的影响,证据相当扎实。他还观察到,自由派的文化不再斯多葛式忍耐,而是鼓励表达不满。他甚至预测,AI 在这件事上可能反而是缓和剂,Claude 或 ChatGPT 大概率没有 Bluesky 或 X 那么极化。

算法把极化焊死了

杰森描述了这十年信息流的变迁:最初是你主动关注谁,自己搭过滤器、维护列表;TikTok 的 For You 页出来之后,YouTube 全面算法化,X 也基本全面算法化。你可以关注任何人,但关注数不再等于播放数。

西尔弗的立场从个人偏好讲起:一个人不应该在税收、堕胎、加沙、自由市场这些议题上持有一整套互相绑定的立场。党派性把一堆本来复杂的议题压成一维,只有蓝和红。社交媒体、尤其是 Twitter,是这台压缩机的引擎。

他在上面说任何一点异见都会被骂成异端,哪怕说的是「拜登明显太老了」这种八成选民都同意的事。

他也没把账全算在马斯克头上。算法信息流早于他,只是被这套治理方式继续放大。西尔弗真正介意的是:如果我主动关注了你,或者关注了《纽约时报》,我就该看到他们的推文,不该再额外给算法一个信号才知道我想看。按时间排序的信息流被拆掉也很烦,世界杯期间刷到六小时前的比赛推文,你根本不知道刚才发生了什么。

杰森补了一刀:推特的产品团队应该做一个按钮,「显示这个人的每一条帖子」,偏偏没有,你只能靠不停点赞来维持,结果整个信息流就跑偏了。西尔弗说 For You 本身训练好了其实还行,点「不再显示」也管用,但他不想用任何一个自以为比用户更聪明的算法。

2026 中期选举:众议院 85-90%,参议院五五开

西尔弗的模型几周内会出来,被世界杯和重划选区的事拖了一阵。他给的即时判断是:

  • 预测市场给民主党夺回众议院的概率大约 80% 到 85%,他认为偏低,应该是 85% 到 90%。
  • 参议院,市场给 40% 到 45%,他基本认同,甚至倾向共和党略微占优,真到五五开或者 60% 归共和党都说得通。

众议院的方向为什么这么一致:一个不受欢迎的总统、选民焦虑的经济、没有新的中东战争、总统所属政党在中期选举里历来吃瘪、全球范围内现任者普遍被反弹、民主党去年在新泽西和弗吉尼亚以及一堆补选里表现不错。重划选区确实让共和党补回一点,但要对抗的引力太大。

参议院是纯算术题。就算在大蓝年,民主党也得在红州赢席。缅因本来是民主党的囊中物,D+8 甚至 D+10 的州,可 Graham Platner 对苏珊·柯林斯(Susan Collins)只领先两个点,西尔弗把这看成一次不必要的冒险。德州那边,詹姆斯·塔拉里科(James Talarico)大概率也是五五开,而共和党的候选人肯·帕克斯顿(Ken Paxton)远不是理想人选。有人在攻击塔拉里科的性取向,那套低分母打法在这套系统里经常奏效。

弗里德伯格问,特朗普有没有办法逆转众议院的局面。西尔弗只点了一个变量:油价。加油站的价格是最显眼的指标,你开车经过就看得见。伊朗冲突会拖多久各方分歧很大,也许十月来个停火,谁也说不准。但特朗普的好感度已经钉在低位,民主党人虽然对自己党一肚子意见,投票热情依然很高。投一个泛指的民主党人对一个泛指的共和党人,对他们来说是个很容易回答的问题。

杰森问,同时赢两院是不是 80 乘以 40 的算法。西尔弗说,两者几乎完美相关。民主党赢参议院却输众议院的概率只有 1% 左右。所以参议院一旦翻蓝,众议院、州长基本全跟着倒。

他借这个机会提了一个别人很少讲的角度:人们太盯着全国层面的画面,忽略了州这个层级,那里才有真正的行政权力,也是决定下一批候选人和下一代政治的地方。州议会同样重要。如果让他给听众一个建议,他会说去找一个市议会候选人,你的那点捐款在那里的边际影响最大。

纽森在塌,西尔弗押 AOC

杰森说纽森是谜一样的政客,治理着全美最差的州,偏偏谈吐漂亮、台风出众、头发也好,问西尔弗他还算不算在往上走。

西尔弗直接否掉。Silver Bulletin 有一篇文章,纽森在民主党初选民调里从大约 25% 掉到 15%,在 Polymarket 上从 33% 掉到 22% 左右。他之前吃的是知名度红利,现在民主党人看到了奥索夫这样的年轻面孔,外形不差,而且有一个纽森永远拿不出的资历:在紫州赢过选举。

他认为民主党开始偏向更年轻的候选人是好事,这也解释了马姆达尼那波。他不排除 AOC,不确定她会不会参选,但舒默在 2028 年初选里可能非常脆弱,AOC 有的是时间等。纽约的经验不能直接外推,但民意的内核是清楚的:我们受够了民主党建制,可以接受一个更左的版本,只要不是同一批人。

纽森的硬伤在于,他辩护的是与哈里斯、拜登的延续性。他去抱拜登的大腿,而这套策略在选举上已经失败,在加州的治理上西尔弗认为也失败了。他甚至把亨特·拜登请上了自己的播客。

AOC 现在 36 岁,符合参选资格。杰森追问,她有没有可能成为民主党的特朗普,那个局外人、掀桌子、「我受够了」的代言人。

西尔弗的回答是:这是我的赌注。

共和党初选很多年都是这个剧本,建制派最后总赢,Rick Santorum、Sarah Palin、Herman Cain 各自能拿 40% 的票,最后笑的是乡村俱乐部那批人。但不满持续累积,加上世代动荡,不需要太多,天平就翻了。年轻人根本不理解,为什么要在一个党牌上较真。(西尔弗)

他最后回到奥巴马的例子:2008 年的奥巴马同时做了两件事,在伊拉克这类议题上站在克林顿的左边,又用一整套后党派修辞讲红州蓝州的小联盟。最有效的候选人能两者兼顾。而民主党推出的还是加州建制派的哈里斯,她离赢并不远,却在所有摇摆州输了 2 到 5 个百分点。西尔弗不相信民主党人最后会被一句「换个白人男性就行了」说服。

  • 看盘的话,注意相关性。众议院和参议院在预测市场上几乎完全联动,别去买「参议院翻蓝但众议院不翻」这类组合,那概率只有 1% 左右。如果 2028 年想下注纽森,现在 22% 的 Polymarket 报价已经反映了明确的滑坡趋势,别再按旧印象定价。
  • 捐款找市议会候选人。这是西尔弗给听众的唯一直接建议。全国层面的钱早就饱和了,市一级的边际影响最大,而那里才是下一代政治人物的孵化器。
  • 把注意力从 43 个州挪开。既然两年半后就能以 97% 的置信度预测它们的去向,你的时间和资源就不该花在预测这些州上,留给真正摇摆的那几个。
  • 盯油价,不要盯新闻。如果 2026 年众议院真的翻蓝,唯一可能扭转局面的宏观变量是伊朗冲突的持续时间和加油站的价格。这是可以被观察、而不是被评论的东西。
  • 自己的信息流自己调。算法信息流会把复杂立场压成一维。如果你关心自己的信息环境,就别只依赖推荐,主动去找具体的人和具体的时间线,让人喂你的成本,比你想的高。
文稿来自 All-In 官网(allin.com)发布的官方 Transcript,说话人按官网分轨数据标注,个别段落可能张冠李戴。
Nate Silver (00:00:00): Partisanship is the gravity that dictates every election in The US. Right? Like, my job don't worry. I will get criticized if 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 rigging. It's because polarization and partisanship are very powerful forces that we can't seem to to escape from. Starting Jason Calacanis (00:00:37): 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. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/allinfree and start using free resources to build your business today. I'm going all in. Alright, 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, Substacker. Go subscribe right now for a Hundy. Quick Hundy at Silver Bulletin over at Substack. It's a great Substack. How are doing, brother? Nice to see you with your Knicks hat on. Nate Silver (00:01:34): I'm good. You know, I think I have, like, one more week to wear the Knicks hat. It's a little bulky, not super podcast video friendly, but I I yeah. You know? Once in fifty three years, once in my lifetime, at least. David Friedberg (00:01:45): Did you go Nate Silver (00:01:45): to any of those games? I went to a bunch of the Philly series. I went to No. 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, infinity or something. Yeah. I went to the Trump game, 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 shit show that it was to get into the arena. It Jason Calacanis (00:02:13): was a little show up, what, two hours early to get in? Three hours? Nate Silver (00:02:16): I am I am not a particularly prompt person. No. I got I'm not wasn't gonna miss so I got there at, like, six. 06:05 for For 08:30. Game. Lined up. You're supposed to get in on 6th Avenue and 33rd, and I was, like, on 6th And 30th or 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 kinda, like Yeah. Follow people. And and once you get in, I mean, it was, like, literally TSA security. They, like, literally, like, at your wallet by hand, and they take your lighters and and Yeah. 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 some questionable officiating decisions. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:03:01): I actually Did you bet any of the games? And, like, did you find the odds were off anywhere? Nate Silver (00:03:05): 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 OKC 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, cover my 200 level bowl seat with the profits from from those non homer bets. I thought the Knicks were legitimately overlooked in the East. And when you see a team that wins, like, they came against Atlanta where we were up, like, literally, like, 77 to 22 at some point or something. I'm like, as somebody who, like, studies this 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. David Friedberg (00:03:50): Do you bet prediction markets, or how do you bet? Jason Calacanis (00:03:53): Big Tony. Nate Silver (00:03:53): If if you are I don't bet through Big Tony. If you are someone who's perceived so I've been limited by DraftKings and and MGM. A lot of the, traditional retail sportsbooks limit you. The prediction markets do not. I consult for polymarket, I should say. So if you're a sharp better I have other issues. Believe 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 know, you have very smart people, you have hedge funds, you're probably making bets in these markets more and more. But, yeah, more more and more, I don't want to go through the rigmarole of, like, can I even get my money down? So I've I will admit I've gravitated toward toward those. Yes. Jason Calacanis (00:04:31): 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 were like, hey. We gotta trade for Giannis. We gotta get Kat out of here. But in January, February, we had this incredible run where we had used Kat as the set point center, And then we backed off of it, and I was on Knicks fan TV talking with, like, the real deep folks. And there was speculation. Like, they figured it out, and they're like, let's hold this play. Mike Brown said, let's hold Cat at the point from you know, until the playoffs because we know it works so good. What makes this team so special? Is it the 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. Nate Silver (00:05:18): I think it's Mike Brown and Kat. I'm not saying the most important components of the Knicks. I'm saying they're those are the deltas where things changed the most. On defense, a couple of things. Number one, you have I love Jalen 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 dissent dissented point of view, are are at least average, if not better. And so, like, kind of figuring out that system by the way, when you rely on a defensive system that requires high effort and transition play, not playing your guys thirty seven minutes per game against, like, the Charlotte Hornets in the regular season, probably a smart move. Jason Calacanis (00:06:04): Yeah. This is why Tibbs had to go. When you look back on it, Tibbs 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. Nate Silver (00:06:17): Yeah. I remember going to the Indiana, I guess, game seven of the semifinals against Indiana in 2024. You kinda see, like, OG was hobbling around out there. I guess Josh Hart kind of valiantly played, and you're like, these guys are like 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 Knicks Nets game in December, January, not the most fun part of the year in New York, where 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 check out the vibe. I actually bet on the Knicks to win by, like, 15 points or more because I thought this is either gonna be, like, the beginning of the end for this regime, or it's gonna be a turnaround game against, you know, a team that'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. Yep. But, like, in the second half, 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 Kat presenting look. Again, like, I love Jalen Brunson. The offense can be a little bit predictable. Maybe in touch possessions yeah. Right? And it's amazing that Jalen Brunson mean, he shot, like, 53% between sixteen and twenty two feet, which is kind of insane given that you know it's coming. It's like Marian Rivera's, like, cut fastball. You know it's coming. But just 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. Nate Silver (00:08:13): Like, I think he's, like, one of the 15 best players in the league. He was racing. Yeah. Yeah. He's a really good player. And so those two things combined, know, a little bit unusual for a veteran team, granted, but spontaneous improvement on both sides of the ball, 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 OKC, a lot more than San Antonio, there is empirical evidence that playoff experience does matter. Yes. This comes up in 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 almost. And, like, 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 and when we Jason Calacanis (00:09:10): 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 ten, fifteen 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 the entire league has to plan 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. Alright. We should get started here. We got so much to talk about, and, obviously, you specialize in elections. We have the midterms coming up. We're gonna talk about 2028 post Trump world, all of that. But we just concluded an election, an election which I I don't wanna 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 feel like a real election. Take us through what happened in your estimation in California with Spencer Pratt, fraud, just mail in ballots. David Friedberg (00:10:10): Yeah. That was just the LA election, Jason, just to be clear. Jason Calacanis (00:10:13): Yeah. Just to go with LA, but go ahead. Build on it. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:10:15): 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 Nipya Raman has this massive surge, and there's this huge statistical difference. As the ballots 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. Nate Silver (00:10:47): So I'd say I think there's no evidence of fraud is the short summary version. The mistake that can be made is to assume that each ballot, like, comes in independently when there are systematic differences between 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 elections. But once election day happens, they count their vote within twenty four 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. Know, it wasn't clear. You know, for a while, it looked like Eric Swalwell was gonna was gonna win and then Katie Porter, and then and then and then, you know, Becerra finally emerges. Becerra like, look. My dad 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 the year to be in San Diego when, 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 understand 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. Nate Silver (00:12:41): 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 debate whether it's a good idea or not, but, like, that traced with the democratic margin in presidential years very strongly, even though for many years, democrats had been the party against 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 mayorship 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 Rudy Giuliani in recent years too. California is not that way. It's much more of a a machine state. David Friedberg (00:13:31): But when you look at that statistical difference, I I get the idea that democrats mail in ballots and they show up late. But when you look at the overwhelming votes for Nipiya 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 maybe you can make that leap there. But the difference in accounting that happened over time, the ratio just seemed so different between ramen and Bass. And then people bring up this idea of ballot harvesting where there were homeless people from Skid Row and the number of ballots that came from that particular region in the late mail in was kinda concentrated for Nikita Raman. Do you get a sense that that actually is a true representation of individual voters and how they individually voted in that election? Nate Silver (00:14:27): I think the California vote count is an accurate tally of the votes that were cast. I mean, yeah, look David Friedberg (00:14:33): And were they Nate Silver (00:14:33): cast mail in David Friedberg (00:14:35): Were they cast by the individuals that were supposed to cast them? Right? This is one of the theories is that there's ballots that are getting filled out en masse in these ballot harvesting efforts where people walk around and they say, hey. Fill out this ballot for this person, and here's a free lunch, or I don't know what's going on. But, like, there's all these videos. I don't know if they're true or not. Nate Silver (00:14:52): I think there is propaganda around this. I also think that, like, mail in voting provides some verification challenges in different ways. You know, I don't inherently see anything that wrong with a system where you go to a physical place to vote and you sign you sign your voter log and and whether you show ID or not. And then if you have, like, a disability or you're really in bad straits, you're traveling in Albania or something, then you David Friedberg (00:15:19): can That makes sense. But I wanna ask I just wanna ask you the empirical question. What is the difference in states or districts or cities that don't have voter ID in those that do politically? Like, is that basically create a huge overweighting for Democrats? Can you just help us understand the politics behind this from an empirical perspective? Not putting on a spin hat or anything. Nate Silver (00:15:40): So the theory used to be that Democrats benefit from higher turnout by kind of any means at all. And that was an era when Democrats tended to dominate among voters, whereas Republicans were like the the, you know, country club, Kiwanis club people who, like, show up in the first day of voting. That has shifted. Look where Democrats have really, really overperformed. It's in special elections. It's in midterms as opposed to high turnout races like like when Trump's been on the ballot. And so, like, I think if Trump like, look. I think voter ID would be pretty reasonable. I'm not against voter ID. Show your ID to do you know, if you show ID even at mid forties to get into a bar, you can probably show it to vote. But, like, at the same time, I don't think that explains what we saw in California. I think it's a system that is much too slow. We have different tranches of ballots that are kinda differently and where younger people that might be more progressive tend to vote later and or by mail. And, again, it's not like this happened in Alabama or something. The the prior on Pratt advancing probably would be pretty low potentially, and I wish that people were were less partisan. I, you know, I have been critical on on the newsletter, so we're bullish about Graham Plattner, for example, because I think he's somebody who has not proven a reliable figure, so to speak. And I was critical of of Joe Biden, and I'm not even registered as a democrat, by the way, despite what people assume. But if you're gonna have five different ways to vote, and I say this to someone with experience, like, actually trying to build election night models and being on national TV on election nights, these blue shifts or red shifts are somewhat predictable and are gonna be a notable consequence of of having different mechanisms to vote where you have, like, different queues in a line. Right? If you're at MSG and you have, like, a VIP line, the cohort that arrives to the VIP line is gonna be different than the one that arrives through, like, the main gates on on 7th Avenue or whatever. Nate Silver (00:17:49): And I think the system should be simplified. By the way, also things like ranked choice voting, which I, again, as an election wonk, I support giving voters more choice. You shouldn't need, like, Maine or New York City take an extra two weeks to count ranked choice voting where I could Claude code Yeah. A a ranked choice voting algorithm that would resolve itself in seven minutes even with a 100,000,000 votes in Maine or half a million or whatever it was in the that Jason Calacanis (00:18:20): we have the appearance of impropriety, and we have a highly politicized system. I don't wanna lead the witness here too much, but we do find isolated cases like this woman, Annica, Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong. She was paying people $3 or giving them cigarettes to register them. You have these on the margin fraudulent looking behaviors. And then if it takes this long, that gives another appearance of impropriety. But I keep bringing up the Heritage Foundation. I'm sure you've looked at their data. They have a lot of people trying to figure out where fraud exists, investigating it, and it's de minimis. It's couple of thousands of cases they can find. So even if you extrapolated them 10 x or 20 x, pick your multiple, it would never swing a major election. In fact, the number of elections that have been swung based on what they told me is, like, the most local smallest election where there's tens of thousands of votes or thousands of votes. So is that the issue that we're seeing here, this collection of appearances of impropriety? Nate Silver (00:19:23): Yes. Look. The U the American election system is very decentralized, which, you know, as kind of like a old school liberal in some ways who I'm kind of against centralized power, I think is quite brilliant in some respects. But, yeah, the scale there is certainly there are certainly cases of fraud when Al Franken won. What was it 2006? Right? They came down to, a recount of, like, 200 votes. We're never gonna know that with any degree of certainty. There is, a margin of error. But in practicing, we know those two. When you do have recounts, again, I've studied this a lot, you have an o point 5% recount threshold in most states. Almost never have you had a margin larger than o point o 5% or so overturned. The errors can also cancel out. Again, you know, the notion that someone can vote without physically being like the ward of their ballot understand why that bothers people, and I think California has been complacent about this. And I think perception does matter, and I think you can there's a kind of certain arrogance, I guess, is a term that comes to mind about saying, well, we want everyone to vote, so we're sure to do things our way. And it takes a long time because we're, like, taking time to verify things. Again, you know, having studied elections all around the world, it's very unusual. Most countries would count much, much faster than The US, certainly because we have an electoral college system. It's decentralized. But, like, in most elections in France or The UK, where they keep having elections or wherever else or Japan or India even, you know the result of the vote within a few hours. And the fact that The United States, the technological leader of the world, and the supposed, like, beacon of democracy can't do that, I think, is is a sign of atrophy of of the efficacy of the system. David Friedberg (00:21:11): Or is it by design, Nate? Let me ask you a question. If voter ID laws don't change and mail in ballot laws don't change and the system doesn't change, is there a chance, do you think, from the data you've seen, for a republican governor to be elected again in California or for republicans to win more seats in the house have a shot at winning a senate seat in California? I mean, fundamentally, does this system not get set up in such a way that it creates a irreversible model for Democrat establishment to maintain its control over elected seats in the state? Nate Silver (00:21:44): I mean, Democrats have lost plenty of elections recently, but not in California. Partisanship is the gravity that dictates every election in The US. Right? Like, my job don't worry. I will get criticized if 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 rigging. It's because polarization and partisanship are very powerful forces that we can't seem to to escape from. You know? Again, I would love, you see a little bit of this in New England, actually. Right? You see, like, a Charlie Baker or is it Phil Scott in Vermont? Right? You see a little bit of, like, cross partisanship in New England. You see even in the South, like, Beshear in Kentucky is a moderate but Democratic governor. For some reason, you don't see it as much in California. I don't know why. California has, like, always been like the laboratory of weird and eccentric political ideas, but it's come it's become a machine state. Maybe because it's so large that voters can't kind of touch the candidates up close and don't have a lot of, like, directly relatable experience. Maybe California is just kind of, like, too large in general, but I look. I am very concerned about polarization and partisanship. I think it leads to lower quality of governance. I think it's exacerbated by gerrymandering this gerrymandering kind of war to the bottom. And Democrats had paid the price where, like, the triangulation, you pick the least worst nominee, works perfectly fine in blue states. They're gonna win the general election. It hasn't given the Democrats very effective general election nominees, right, between you know, I consider, like, you know, they're one out of the last four. I consider Biden to have lost in 2024 but before Harris lost instead. You know, the one election that did win was during a once in a century pandemic that, although I had my critiques of liberal handling of COVID, was kind of objectively handled. Well, I don't know. Nate Silver (00:23:52): You can talk about operation worksheet. I understand why voters were very unhappy with 2020, the 2020 version of Trump and and the greatest economic disruption since the nineteen thirties. So they kind of won the gimme. They haven't won the close elections recently except for Obama, who conspicuously at least kind of made rhetoric to trying to bridge a divide between the parties. You know, Obama still has a I looked at this today, a 57% approval rating post facto with with independents. Biden is at 20%. And, like, look, I think a lot of Democrats and Republicans, certainly were maybe even more so Republicans, frankly, under Trump, feel as though you don't even have to try to turn out the other side or persuade people. It's just a numbers game. And in California, if you're Democrats, you win the numbers game. Jason Calacanis (00:24:44): You run back to back calls all day. Decisions get made, then the details slip. Plaud fixes that. Clip Plaud Note Pro to your phone, hit record, and stay in the conversation. Plaud Intelligence captures every word and turns it into structured notes, action items, and follow ups, not a transcript you'll never open. The actual work done for you. Capture more, miss nothing. Find Flawed Note Pro at flawed.ai. I think we wanna really get to 2026 and 2028 and talk about what you were alluding to, which is the polarization and how these parties have changed. The Republicans used to be, you know, this country club group, elites, rich people, business owners. Now they're the populist party. Then the other side, which used to be the working man and the working woman's party, they've become this liberal weird socialist party, and that seems to be playing. David Friedberg (00:25:38): They're both popular. Jason Calacanis (00:25:39): Going on with the vibes, I guess, between these two parties, and how do you look at them? Because it does feel like inside of each of those parties, you have two sub parties. So you really have, like, some sort of four by four matrix here or two by two matrix with four different groups. How is that gonna play out in 2026, which still feels like the anti Trump vote? Like, hey. I'm not happy about Trump. But 2028, there's Trump's not gonna run a third time in all likelihood. So let's take those two buckets as well as the vibes and these parties fracturing a bit. Nate Silver (00:26:11): Yeah. I think Democrats really have three factions as I've described them. One is the left. The avatars might be Zoran, might be AOC, might be Bernie Sanders. All of whom, by the way, are quite effective politicians in their own way. I mean, Zoran understood how to, like, be a Knicks cheerleader, for example. Oh my god. Yeah. He went That speech was, Jason Calacanis (00:26:38): like, almost perfect. Whoever wrote it for him is a Knicks fan. Nate Silver (00:26:41): But, look, I'll be honest. I I didn't vote for him, but, like, I think find anyone who's, like, trying to, like, bridge gaps and expand a tent, even if it's from a direction that I might not agree with, I find that, like, somewhat appealing, I suppose. You know, AOC, you can take your leave. She has become a more effective tactical politician. You know, Bernie, what he's built with with being a freaking old guy from Vermont, the socialist mayor of Burlington, Vermont, coming within not a hair's breadth, but coming, you know, quite close and beating Clinton in 20 states in 2016 or whatever was quite impressive. But, like, that's one constituency, and historically, the left has not had a lot of big wins outside of the bluest states. On the other side, there are the abundance libs, kind of named after Ezra Klein. Right? They are more pro free market. They sometimes deny that they're centrist. I think they're pretty centrist. They are the ones who are very concerned with California as a case study of poor governance. And whenever you think about parties at the national level, generally speaking, it's the purple states, sometimes the red states where things are more are more functional, where there's more housing, where when you get out of the airport to catch an Uber, there's not some convoluted system where you have to wait twenty minutes in line to go to some shuttle like an LAX or whatever else, right, where there's population growth. I mean, you wanna talk about, like, hard data. Population data in The US and jobs data is pretty good, and those are states where people have moved to. And the abundance of are critical of democratic governance and critical of of culture war issues on policing and trans rights and and until you have what I call the resistance lib faction. They're the ones who say they're really fed up with the democratic establishment, but are still often very partisan and often very, like, cheerleading for the blue team. They're the ones who thought that Joe Biden was railroaded out of the 2024 race, for example. They're really Gavin Newsom's constituency. Why is Gavin Newsom going out of his way to support and endorse kind of the Bidens when Biden, even among Democrats, is not all that popular anymore? Nate Silver (00:28:52): Everyone else wants to move on. Well, it's because it signals, like, the resistance libs that, like, I have your back. I'm a fighter. The reason why we didn't win in 2024 is because the media was unfair to Biden and or because Kamala Harris was a black woman. So pick a white guy who will fight for you and tweet in all caps, and you'll win. I don't think he's a very Jason Calacanis (00:29:12): ride or die. We're gonna just our team our team our team's gonna win. It doesn't matter. We never apologize. Kind of the Trump playbook. Never apologize. Go on the attack. Seems to be what Gavin's doing. Right? Nate Silver (00:29:23): Absolutely. And he had some some proof of concept. I mean, the redistricting thing was a genuinely smart tactical move. Democrats are gonna wind up losing seats, but, like, without California, they probably lose even more. And so he did skate where the puck was going there instead of the party's, like, usual risk version that I've critiqued before. But at the same time, the triangulating spirit of, like, let's pick Kamala Harris because she she's, like, the least unacceptable candidate or Hillary or or John Kerry, you wanna go back to 2004. The establishment doesn't seem to have an understanding of the fact that, like, almost every election now Obama in 2012 was, I guess, the exception. Almost every election now is a change election. We might ping pong back and forth for many cycles. Like, I think Democrats are slight favorites to win in 2028. It wouldn't shock me if AOC or Newsome or Shapiro or Ossoff or whomever wins. If they're underdogs again in 2032, look what's happening in The UK where I mean, it's kind of become like a running joke, but we're gonna be through, like, what, like, six prime ministers in nine years or something, and they're probably The US's, like, closest comp. It's not a good time to be a defender of the status quo. And I do think candidates like Kamala Harris who was unable to distance herself, kind of literally unable or unwilling to distance herself from from Biden, or Newsom who's kind of, like, defending that legacy in the same way. Like, to me, that seems like a failed strategy. But like in a lot of these World Cup games, sometimes, you know, sometimes you win on penalties. You know? I I don't think that any of the GOP nominees look to be particularly strong. Donald Trump in our approval ratings now is down to 38%. People are upset about Iran. They're upset about gas prices. They're upset about just fatigue of having, you know, a singular center star of politics over the past. You know, Trump kind of is like it's fatiguing a little bit. And so, like, it's an uphill battle for the GOP. Democrats might do their best to to give Republicans a fighting chance despite that. David Friedberg (00:31:27): So just to extrapolate from that, like, the point about needing change, driving change on the progressive side, we are seeing socialists getting elected as mayor, socialists starting to rise at the state level, and many of these candidates that you've mentioned are self declared socialists on the national level. We may potentially have a democratic socialist as president 2028 based on what you're saying. Is that ultimately where this goes, where the populist movements drive the left further left, and everyone in that party now seems to be jumping on this bandwagon proclaiming socialist principles as the only way to solve inequity and unfairness in this country and, you know, kinda jumping on what we were from empirical kind of history shown doesn't work as a governing system, as a economic system, but suddenly everyone's kind of been swept away by it and seems to think it's it's the the only way forward. Does that kind of the the output of the conditions that you're describing that the left, the Democrats basically become a socialist party and they embrace socialism fully and full throated? Nate Silver (00:32:35): I think there are huge generational divides where you know? So I grew up I'm 48. So I still remember the kind of not last messages, but, like, I still remember the Cold War. I still remember the Berlin Wall falling. Right? So for me, the connotations are of socialism are close adjacent to communism, are a long history of failure of economic development in countries that adopted that system. I think people who are a little bit older don't realize that, like, the socialism brand is much more popular among younger Democrats. By the same token, America is still a supremely capitalist country, you know, if not for and, I in my book, I have lots of critiques of the tech sector. We still are attracting the best and brightest young talent from all around the world. You know, I personally think the AI capital boom, whatever becomes of it, is responsible for keeping our economy, at least the stock market, in relatively good shape. And, you know, also things like where have Democrats lost support? Well, actually, the biggest differences are concentrated among Hispanic and, to some extent, Asian American voters. You know, who do you think are the most likely people to own small businesses in The US? It's a cliche, but a 100% true that, like, the recent immigrant groups are very entrepreneurial. It's one thing that I believe makes The United States great and one thing that makes me very pro immigration. But you have seen shifts in those groups in the most entrepreneurial groups away from Democrats. David Friedberg (00:34:09): Yeah. Because, I mean, they they all escaped socialist countries and socialist backgrounds and the economic mobility that's afforded by free markets and capitalism and the degree of true liberalism we provide in this country is what's given folks opportunities that don't exist elsewhere. But the second and third generation of the American middle class are probably, you know, more likely, as you point out, to kind of be convinced of the benefits of socialism. Jason Calacanis (00:34:36): This isn't your wheelhouse, Nate. But if you were hired to give a playbook to either party for 2028, what would be in that playbook? What would you tell them is the right platform for this moment in time, a post Trump era, and with socialism, wealth disparity, health care? There's there's a group of issues here that keep coming up, the support of Israel, foreign wars. What's the perfect platform for either party, an independent or left leaning or right leaning? What are gonna be on the top of Americans' minds if you can look that far out? Nate Silver (00:35:13): Yeah. Look. I, by most definitions, am an elite as are you guys. You can afford tickets to game three of the Yeah. First NBA finals game in New York in whatever twenty five years, and you're probably an elite. And most elites like me say they're, you know, socially liberal, economically moderate. I know I I use the term liberal, meaning the way liberals use in Europe, meaning some role for the state, but pro market in general, and that's probably my view. I'm not sure that view is actually an electoral winner as much. Right? The most neglected voters in The US are people who are culturally a little bit more conservative, but, like, economically more progressive potentially, but not quite in the same way that you get from, like, an AOC. They support small business. They are wary of conglomerations of power. Maybe I'm putting that with with too generous a brush, but, like, I do think that, like, when you have the worst world's first trillionaire, when people have a lot of anxiety, maybe the anxiety is not the right shape of anxiety, but understandable anxiety about AI when you have AI leaders saying things like, it's gonna displace all these white collar jobs. Look. I think a electorally, I'm not saying morally or righteously, whatever else. Right? I think combining a little bit of the right kind of anti oligarch rhetoric with moderation on some of the issues, you know, on the woke stuff. I get that that term already feels like it's becoming outdated. But, like, still supporting small business, especially for men. Right? Young men still want to feel as though they control their own destiny. A lot of them feel like they don't do that anymore, but I don't think they necessarily want, like, all that much hand holding. But, no, it's a difficult thing to to triangulate, and The US is not alone in having a lot of resistance and dissatisfaction with with the status quo. You know? I mean, again, this is part of why and I'm sure about 2% of your audience will be sympathetic to this. Nate Silver (00:37:23): Why I have, like, been more defending of Zoran Mamdani living in New York is because, like, he's at least getting the ins and outs. We'll see what happens in in after four years of, like, New York being, like, a a basically functional city. Right? We have really nice new airports. It's not what Zoran's doing. That's Cuomo and a hell of a lot of money spent, but, like, our crime is, like, relatively low compared to to California. I used to live right near Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, not the nicest neighborhood, not the nicest block, but, like, I never walked around feeling unsafe there when I visit SF. Then you have to be more careful. Right? And so I I think, like, combining functional performance in government with whatever message you want is part of it. I think maybe even, like, having, like, a little bit more, like, optimism too. I'm I'm kind of always a fan of, like, zigging where other people zag. Obama presented a more optimistic take about, like, kind of, like, the American spirit. Right? You know? Look. I see all the enthusiasm around the World Cup and the Knicks. I I don't wanna sound, like, cliched, but, you know, tonight, after we tape, which is taping on a Monday night, New York time. Right? I can, like, wander around the streets of New York, and there'll be some, like, Norwegian bar that has Norway game on. And, like, that does make America great and, like, rediscovering those values. I don't know. I mean, maybe somebody like a you know, I think maybe the most electable Democrat might be somebody like a John Ossoff who is who is younger, who is pretty progressive if you look at his voting record, but, like, but isn't, like, a brawler in quite the same way that that Newsom is trying to be. I mean, the generational part is a lot of this. You know, I think it's insane that we had a candidate who was trying to be president until he was 86, and the alternative is someone who's trying to be president until he's 82. Nate Silver (00:39:18): Like, I I don't you don't see very many Warren Buffett fine. If Warren Buffett ran for president, maybe I'd vote for him. Right? But, like, you don't see very many leaders in the parts of the world. You don't see very many CEOs or leaders otherwise. I you know, I very much value the contribution of my older friends. Right? But, like, to run the biggest country in the world as an 82 year old to me seems kind of insane. Jason Calacanis (00:39:41): And so there's some basic level of confidence that Mondami is showing in New York. He's positive. He's fixing potholes. He's making it, you know, a celebration of whatever the sports teams are. He's fixing garbage. Like, there are some basic things that New Yorkers very much appreciate in quality of life, and that's not something you expect from a Democrat or a socialist. And those kind of like blocking and tackling in the high level of engagement, which Trump, you mentioned, kinda burns people out with that high level of engagement. Seems like Mondavi comes just under that. He's a little more positive. He doesn't use, like, the toxicity that much, but he's he's engaging. Right? And that seems to be working in New York and with the voter base. No? Nate Silver (00:40:25): I he's pretty popular here so far. And, again, New York is New York is a capitalist city, I think. I think it's different than somewhere like California. It's not kind of as West Coast, freshwater progressive. New York is a pragmatic place that people from all around the world migrate to. It's a place where there's a lot of wealth all around you. It's also a place that despite seeming like a chaotic shit show at times I mean, it's look. It's easy to be optimistic about New York in in mid June when we have, like, the most beautiful weather of the year and everyone's coming to visit and everything else. But, like but New York is a success story in a way that I think California has become less of one, maybe. David Friedberg (00:41:04): Sorry. Let me just ask you a question on this capitalism. Have you seen data that underscores this main line that everyone's talking about that the youth are kind of disillusioned by capitalism and don't believe in capitalism. I mean, to see this happen in a city like New York, to your point, a city that is a bastion of capitalism and progress and opportunity for people for people to put in place a candidate as mayor that announces the capitalism as a system and talks about collectivism just seems to indicate that maybe there's a real movement with the youth. I mean, one of the statistics I always quote to people is I think 45,000,000 people graduated college in the last decade in The United States that have all of them or a a large percentage of them, I should say, have a pretty significant debt burden that they feel is gonna be very hard to get out of. And I would argue that that's a function of the federal student loan program and its underwriting processes, and it really condemns people to a life that is gonna be very hard to grow your way out of. But what does the data tell you about capitalism and what that says about the next cycle here? Nate Silver (00:42:09): Yeah. Where the cut point is is probably around age 40, I'd say. Obviously, it kind of ages by a year every year. And, like, you know, we saw I saw before the New York Merrill race last year, people who were able to make incredibly accurate, almost block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood projections based on where Zoran would be good versus Cuomo, based on knowing the city and where younger people younger, more progressive people live, I would say. You know, I think part of it might have to do with economic anxiety for sure. I think it's also your experience, like, growing up and exactly when you kind of came of age. Right? Again, I grew up in, like, I guess the first election I was old enough to vote in was Clinton in '96. This is like the triumph of the West and capitalism. You had a very robust economy. In the nineteen nineties, you had a lot of growth. And by the time you get to your you know, when the great recession hit, you know, I already had by a year. Right? I already had a job. I already had a foothold. I think that people kind of, like, born if you were in college when September 11 happened, like, that might be kind of the the cut point, roughly speaking. It doesn't cut quite cleanly from Gen X through millennials. It goes a few years into the millennials. But, like, sometimes I kind of joke. It seems to me like people, like, in their forties through early fifties are, like, the only, like, sane people in The US. Right? That kind of, like, second half of of Gen X in particular, although we've never had a Gen X president. Kamala Harris would have been a boomer too, technically speaking. But they're the people who are like, okay. We grew up and we worked hard, and we still felt like more or less the American system worked for us. I I think people wrongly or rightly that are half a generation younger don't have that experience. Also, should talk about like, much as I think that in certain ways, the media is an overrated storyline, how people consume their news? You know, you look now at what's happening at CBS and Paramount or CNN or whatever else. Right? We had an era where you had very centralized news delivery systems under TV and radio. Nate Silver (00:44:24): I know I sound like I'm dating myself. The Internet's been around for for a long time. But when you have three or four major networks that have a huge amount of editorial control over the message and might use to work at the New York Times. Right? You know, when I first got there, you would still have, like, the page one meeting every day where it's like, we are the people, the editors of New York Times, like, deciding, like, what is news and what's not. And now it's become very decentralized. Obviously, social media plays a role in that too. I think the evidence is pretty decent that, like, phones and social media affect youth satisfaction a lot. You know, you also have a culture, I think, among liberals where where it's, like, no longer a stoic culture. It's a culture where maybe you might express your grievance. Ironically, maybe AI will change this a little bit. There's some initial evidence that, like, the models actually gravitate toward consensus views, expert opinion, sometimes a a jaded or hallucinated version of what the consensus really is. But, you know, Claude or ChatGPT is probably less polarizing than Blue Sky or Twitter. Jason Calacanis (00:45:33): Let's talk about social media for a second. It used to be a paradigm of you follow people, You build your filter. You have your list. You spend a lot of time curating that. And then TikTok comes out with their for you page, FYP. YouTube goes full algorithm, and now x has gone basically full algorithm. You can follow whoever you like, but your follower count is not your viewer count and engagement count. And, obviously, after Elon took over Twitter, libs, a lot of celebrities decided to leave. Business people stayed. Lots of anonymous accounts. It's the free speech platform of all free speech platforms. It's chaotic. But what impact just in that very tiny nuance of followers to algorithm has changed and impacted politics? Because it feels like the filter bubble is becoming incredibly pronounced. I mean, you you give two or three things alike, and now that's the rest of your entire day. Nate Silver (00:46:28): Yeah. Look. For me, I don't think a person should have a correlated stance on taxes and abortion and and Gaza and, you know, the free market and whatever else. Partisanship is a very powerful force to squish this very complicated array of political issues we have in The United States on into into just one dimension, blue versus red or left versus right. And social media, Twitter in particular, I think is a very effective mechanism for that. And I get I get totally yelled at for any bit of heterodoxy, like, particular, like, saying Biden is obviously too old. Democrats, you're gonna you're gonna lose unless you replace him. Like, that, even though it's a chance that, like, literally 80% of voters agreed with will make you, like, seem like a heretic on Twitter. I've been critical, by the way, of of parts of what Elon has done. Although some of the things predate him, like the algorithmic feed, wasn't purely invented by Elon. It was improved or perfected or worsened depending on your point of view by the current regime. You know? I do think it's a problem that, like, like, if I choose to follow an account, you, Jason, or the New York Times or whatever else or Nick's account, I wanna see their tweets without having to give the algorithm an additional signal. Like, that part bothers me. I don't like the depreciation Twitter debates is about. That's Jason Calacanis (00:47:45): incredibly frustrating. Like, you literally have to favorite or like things in order to keep them in your feed. And I told the Twitter team, you should have a little button on the follow. Show me every post from this person. Like, if I want to get my ski mountains reports or I want my Knicks fan TV, I want every single post. And there's no way to do that except like every post, and then your feed just goes off the rails. David Friedberg (00:48:07): Mhmm. Nate Silver (00:48:08): Yeah. I mean, it's very look. I actually think the four u algorithm is pretty decent for what it is. You you have to train it. Like, you know, for a while, I got a bunch of, like, fight videos because they're compelling. You see, like, a fight of teenagers and, like, oh, I'm I spent eight minutes seconds watching this or whatever else. Right? It's terrible. If you click don't show me this anymore, it is pretty responsive and it is pretty good. Like, the algorithm knows right now, I just wanna retweets about the World Cup and is Giannis getting traded. Right? And maybe a little bit about the New York and California elections. But I wish there were, like you know, I I don't like any algorithm that, like, presumes it's, like, smarter than the user. And if I if I log in or if I subscribe to somebody and I wanna see their tweets and I haven't muted them, then show me their tweets. You can mix in things that you think I'll like. Breaking the algorithmic or the time, the chronological feed is also annoying to me. Right? Like, I want, if I'm watching the World Cup and there's a tweet about a match from six hours ago, someone's like, oh my god. Amazing. Right? I'm like, what just happened? And, like, it's not surfacing things in quite the right order. Look. I think a lot of companies kinda make the mistake of Twitter was I'm not sure if Twitter was ever gonna be, like, a hugely profitable company. It was a very unique resource for following the news if, like, I am and, like, you guys are, at least you, Jason, are, like, total news addict. Like, it was a very unique platform, and I wish that functionality had been preserved. Again, to be fair Yeah. This started before Elon, although it has been continued since. Jason Calacanis (00:49:46): Let let's wrap on 2028, and in particular, Gavin Newsom. David Friedberg (00:49:49): Oh, no. Predictions for the midterms. Predictions for the midterms. Jason Calacanis (00:49:52): So lightning round prediction for the midterms. David Friedberg (00:49:54): House house and senate predictions. What does the data tell us right now? Nate Silver (00:49:56): So we'll have a model out within a few weeks, been a a little bit delayed by the World Cup and the redistricting stuff. Prediction markets say Democrats are around, I think, 80 or 85% to take the house and 40 or 45% to take the senate. Those both seem pretty reasonable to me. I think if anything, it's a little bit low on the house. I think it might be more like 85 or 90. My models surprise me sometimes. Like, look. We've been through a lot of elections that are inherently hard to forecast. The house is the one where everything kind of points in the same direction. Democrats, are facing a very unpopular president, an economy that voters have a lot of anxiety about. Trump, no new Middle Eastern wars. On top of that, the very, very long history of the president's party drawing a backlash and performing poorly at the midterms, the more recent history of incumbent backlash in The US and all around the world, the good results from Democrats in, like, New Jersey and Virginia last year and special elections. You know? Look. The redistricting thing helps the GOP a little bit in the end, but you're fighting against a lot of gravity. Whereas the senate is more of a more of a numbers game. Even in a pretty blue environment, democrats have to win some seats in red states. It seems to me that taking a big risk in Maine, which is a state that by all rights, they ought to win in a d plus eight year and a d plus 10 state, but Graham Platner is only two points ahead of Susan Collins. I think I take that polling at face value. I think he is I take him at fifty fifty, but, like, that's a unnecessary risk potentially. But, look, the GOP will be able to in these red states, a candidate like Talarico, who is also probably in roughly a toss-up race, and and Pakistan is a far less than ideal Republican nominee. Like, partisanship is still a powerful force. People are saying, why are they kind of attacking Talarico on? I think things that are are not above board, you know, critiquing your sexuality or whatever else. What's because sex is like a really red state? Nate Silver (00:51:57): Like, Trump's not popular, so you're like you're kind of going for, like, the lowest common denominator, but in our system, that works a fair amount of the time. So it's just a polling and math and numbers game in the senate. We're gonna see more money spent than ever, whereas the house, 435 seats. I think that partisan gravity is more likely than not just too much for Trump to overcome. David Friedberg (00:52:18): Is there anything that Trump can do or that could change in a macro out of our control perspective that could shift things more significantly for the house back to the Republicans? Nate Silver (00:52:30): If he can get gas prices down, it's such a visible indicator. You drive by the Chevron station, whatever else. Right? You you literally see it. You know, I think if you look at forecast, there is supposed to be some abatement, but very contention on how long the conflict war in Iran persists in this quagmire. You know, look. Maybe if we maybe if we have a HEI, right, by by in October or something, who knows what happens then? But, no, it's his unfavorable ratings are very entrenched, and Democrats are very enthusiastic despite their misgivings about their own party. And as much difficulty as I think they'll have in 2028 nominating a candidate, to vote for your generic Democrat against a generic Republican is a pretty easy ask for for Democrats who feel like democracy's on the line and, like, and, like so I think that's fairly baked in. As someone who builds models, don't I bet on politics. I've on sports. Right? I'm always aware that, like, yeah, there's the 10% chance that the underdog you never see coming prevails. You know? Cape Verde ties with Spain or something. But, like, that's pretty fundamentally driven, whereas on the on the flip side, needing to pick up four senate seats when you might blow the opportunity in Maine, it's a toss-up probably probably slight edge to the GOP with maybe gas prices and Iran determining whether it's more truly fifty fifty or maybe maybe 60% GOP. Jason Calacanis (00:53:58): The chance of winning both, is that, you know, 80 times 40 type situation and you or is it different because of politics and and the way the statistics work? David Friedberg (00:54:06): It's it's not 30% correlated. Yeah. Nate Silver (00:54:08): Yeah. They're they're almost perfectly correlated. So if the odds of Democrats winning the senate but not the house are, like, are, like, 1%. If you go to Calci or Polymarket, whatever else, they have to be, like, around 1%. So conditional on Democrats winning the senate, they'll almost certainly have won the house. They'll almost certainly have won governorships, which, by the way, these things are important. You know? I I think people probably focus too much on the national picture and not enough on on what happens at the state level where people actually have executive power, and you're picking the the candidates and the politics of the next generation. State legislatures are important. If I were talking to all the listeners, right, I'd say, look for, like, a a city council candidate for whom your contribution might make a lot of difference. But, like, you know, if Democrats win the senate, that means it's a really blue year to overcome the fact that you're winning in places like Ohio, Iowa, Alaska. And if that happens, therefore, probably the rest of it all the dominoes fall that way. Jason Calacanis (00:55:05): Alright. Gavin Newsom in 2028. He's in an enigma of a politician, worse run state in the union as far as I'm concerned. But he's so polished, and he speaks so well, and people seem to like him with that great hair. What should we take from Gavin Newsom's, you know, continued ascension? Am I correct that he's still, you know, on the up? Nate Silver (00:55:28): He's not. So we have an article up on silver bulletin, which we'll publish shortly after we finish this podcast. Newsom has fallen in Democratic primary polls from around 25% to 15%. He's fallen on polymarket from, like, 33% to 22 or something. I think he was benefiting from some degree of name recognition, whereas now Democrats see a candidate like John Ossoff in Georgia, another good looking young guy, but, like, actually has credential, which is we'll never have of having won an election in a purple state. And being a younger, fresher face, like, you say about Graham Plattner and Janet Mills in Maine, I think Mills in the abstract might have been the face of safer choice. I think it's good that Democrats are showing a bias toward younger candidates. Right? Like, that's a lot of what happened with Zoran too. You know, I wouldn't discount, by the way, someone like an AOC. I'm not sure if she'll run. Someone like Chuck Schumer might be very vulnerable in the twenty twenty eight primary, for example, she has a lot of time to wait. But, like, I could see, like, I again, in New York, it's New York, so therefore, you can't extrapolate too much from New York. However, people saying, we are sick and tired of the democratic establishment. I'll take a more separatist version or a more left wing version, but not the same. I think, ultimately, Newsom has, like, a a hard argument to make. He's arguing for continuity with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. He's embracing Joe Biden when that strategy has failed electorally. I would argue in California governance wise as well. It to to me, it's like a I think Newsom is actually in a pretty defensive position, and that's why you see him having Hunter Biden or something on his plow. You know what Jason Calacanis (00:57:11): I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. An AOC is now 36 years old, so she qualifies. You're you're saying it's not a zero chance that she could become the equivalent of Trump, the outsider, the burn it down, the That's my bet. Sick and tired vote? David Friedberg (00:57:25): She's my best. She's my bet. Jason Calacanis (00:57:26): Yeah. Yes. You're a bet. Okay. What do you think? Let's talk about AOC. Did she got that possibility with her charisma? Nate Silver (00:57:32): We've seen in states like Maine. We may see this in Michigan as well where yeah. I mean, look. For many years in the Republican primary, the notion was that the establishment always won out. That you'd have, like, the Rick Santorums or Sarah Palins or Herman Caines or whatever else is who would get 40% of the vote, the same country club establishment types we talked about at top of the show would prevail at the end of the day. And then it doesn't take that much of perpetually growing dissatisfaction or generational turmoil. Like, young people in general, like, don't understand, like, why the would I care about, like, a party brand anyway? Like, the Democratic party brand is like a a lame brand as certainly the GOP is. Interesting. And so if you're an avatar for that brand, then, like, you know, I look. I think the best candidates even Obama in 2008 obviously, not even Obama. Obama was a highly effective, one of the, you know, generationally charismatic candidate. But even he combined, on the one hand, positioning to the left of Clinton on issues like Iraq. On the other hand, he had a whole, whatever. We have gay sisters in blue states and red states, and we play little league in the blue states and, like, that whole, like, postpartisan rhetoric. I think the most effective candidates can be exactly what he is. He has made some efforts. I mean, he had Charlie Kirk on his podcast. I think it was last year. Right? He has tried to moderate. I mean, he's against the billionaire tax. He's tried to moderate on some of the culture where issues like nominated a institutional candidate from California. She didn't come that far from winning, but she lost all the swing states by by, you know, two to five points. And, like, I don't believe, at the end the day, Democrats will be persuaded that, like, oh, just because you're white and you have different anatomy, like, that that that all from the one that every Democrat was terrified by in 2024. Jason Calacanis (00:59:21): Alright. An hour with our guy, Nate Silver. Let us know what you think in the comments. We will have you back on when we do our live election coverage for sure if you're available, and the audience always loves when David Friedberg (00:59:34): you're on. Paid a lot on that night, Jake. I don't think he's coming on all Jason Calacanis (00:59:36): of that. Whatever. Mean, he's he's a fan of the pie. He's a fan of all women. David Friedberg (00:59:40): Pretty much like he's part of Jason Calacanis (00:59:41): the family. Nate Silver (00:59:42): That will come Jason Calacanis (00:59:42): in the next day. Whatever. Whenever you're not securing the bag to secure a more Knicks ticket for our repeat next year, Everybody go right now. If you hear my voice to the silver bulletin, pop out a Hyundai and subscribe. You're gonna love Nate Silver (00:59:55): $95, Jason. That's what I said. I rounded up to a Hyundai. Jason Calacanis (00:59:58): But, yeah, listen. I know that you've probably done the metrics. 94 dot 97 is the right David Friedberg (01:00:03): number to the door. $5 for the guy at Jason Calacanis (01:00:05): the Whatever. We would skim a little bit off the top. It's all good. And, yeah, everybody go to Polymarket, place some bets, our favorite partner, Nate's favorite partner. And, yeah, we'll see you all next time on the All In Interview Show. David Friedberg (01:00:18): Thanks, Nate. Jason Calacanis (01:00:19): Great job, Nate. You rock. Nate Silver (01:00:20): Thank you so much, guys. Awesome.

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