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HylianSwordsman on 09 August 2019
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Mnementh said:
HylianSwordsman said:

Yeah, I've been following Silver for a long time now and he's always been incredibly pessimistic with Sanders. He was pessimistic with Trump pretty much until it was obvious he was going to get the nomination, and even then entertained all sorts of ideas about how he might be stopped, and not until the last couple of months did he have Trump with a decent chance to win through flipping the Rust Belt. The guy is incredibly skeptical of any anti-establishment movement until it's inevitable the movement will succeed.

Yeah well, his statistical model about the 2016 election was good. And he said himself, that his considerations before the model were wrong. I guess if he makes educated guesses, he does not better than us. So that is why he said 'not taken too seriously tiers'.

That said I think his underestimation of Sanders is strange. Although Sanders was and is polling at second place, Silver often put him below Kamala Harris. And it is not as if the other indicator were bad. Sanders has less endorsements than Harris, but not extremely bad. And fundraising is phenomenal for Sanders. But ih well, I also only make educated guesses, so my chances to be right aren't any better.

Don't get me wrong, I generally trust his statistical analysis, the man is really good at what he does. As far as I can tell, it's the best political statistical analysis on the internet. But he seems to believe that his Sanders bearishness is justified because he thinks Sanders has a "low ceiling" without asking himself why that is and what might change that. In the 2016 primary Sanders was the candidate who just kept slowly climbing in the polls, much like Warren is now (and Sanders still, just slower), so he didn't have a ceiling then, why would he now? I mean come on, Biden voters second choice is Bernie, he's a guy that goes on Fox News and Joe Rogan and makes the leftwing case to people across the aisle in such a way that it gets through to them! If Warren isn't near her ceiling yet, then neither is Bernie. And Biden hasn't hit his floor yet, as we've seen. There's already been a poll showing Biden behind nationally, while Bernie never has a weak showing and that showing is continually improving. Bernie should be with Warren on those tiers, and Kamala should be by herself in 1c. His only justification for having Warren in a higher tier is that she "has the most upward momentum" right now, and yet Bernie gained more after the second debate than she did, her climb has just been going on a bit longer. It really just feels like this is a gut feeling of his, and he's guilty of the same things now that he confessed to in that Trump confession you linked, he's being a pundit.