fivethirthyeight--2020-11-02--Are We Sold On The Steelers, Seahawks And Other Would-Be Super Bowl Contenders?

sara.ziegler ( Sara Ziegler , sports editor ) : The FiveThirtyEight model is in overdrive .
Will the red team win it all again ?
Can a blue team recapture glory ?
There were strong results Sunday in Pennsylvania and Florida but more troubling indicators in Wisconsin and Michigan .
And Arizona just took the week off .
Oh , right — this is football , not politics .
Week 8 may prove to be a tipping point for the NFL ’ s Super Bowl hopefuls , but we won ’ t know for sure until long after the presidential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we hope . )
Two of those hopefuls — the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks — got big wins Sunday in divisional matchups , and they now find themselves in the top four of our Super Bowl odds .
Let ’ s start with the Steelers : Are any of you more convinced of their strength after their win over Baltimore ?
joshua.hermsmeyer ( Josh Hermsmeyer , NFL analyst ) : The Steelers are the Pennsylvania of NFL teams .
They could go either way , depending on the ground game .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finishing the week ranked dead last in QBR , and the Ravens still had a chance on the final play of the game .
Salfino ( Michael Salfino , FiveThirtyEight contributor ) : If you could put those teams together , you ’ d have a legitimate Super Bowl favorite .
Despite blitzing Jimmy Garoppolo into oblivion ( and into the medical tent ) , the Seahawks have massive pass-defense problems .
And the Steelers have a defense that can pass for a Steel Curtain in today ’ s defensive-starved game , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ game and a QB who no longer hangs in for the big play .
neil ( Neil Paine , senior sportswriter ) : Yeah , I still don ’ t think Pittsburgh is especially dominant by 7-0 team standards .
Since 1970 , 39 teams have started 7-0 .
By Elo , the 2020 Steelers are 35th best through seven games .
Salfino : I can see a little of the 1990 Giants in the 2020 Steelers .
neil : The Steelers beat the Ravens mainly because of turnovers .
They were +3 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battle by 236 — and like Josh said , they still only barely won .
Salfino : They seem to have Lamar Jackson ’ s number .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Russell Wilson and the ’ Hawks have a much sturdier claim to being a contender .
Since he ’ s been the starter , the Seahawks are 52-16 at home .
Home-field advantage , even in the COVID-19 era , may end up being important for them if they do make a deep playoff run .
sara.ziegler : Right , and though the Niners @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that game was never really in doubt — and now Russ & Co. have a game on everyone else in the stacked NFC West ( with Jared Goff and the Rams also losing ) .
Did Sunday ’ s game change any of your minds about Seattle ?
neil : idk if my mind changed here — we knew this already — but Russ continues to be amazing .
He has 26 TD passes already !
That ’ s the second most by any QB through a team ’ s first seven games @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When you ’ re mentioned in the same sentence as Dave Krieg , you must be doing something right .
🙂 I love Dave Krieg .
One of my favorite VHS tapes growing up , “ The NFL ’ s 100 Greatest Football Follies , ” had a whole segment devoted to him being history ’ s most prolific fumbler .
Salfino : Krieg was the Fitz of his time .
Salfino : Do you think the blitzing can be something that carries over ?
Maybe mask a bad secondary with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to cheat to get one ?
Analytics says this is the opposite of how you should defend the pass though , right ?
joshua.hermsmeyer : Mike , I think if you decide the path to victory is pressure on the QB , you create that pressure however you can .
Ideally you do it while also not putting your cornerbacks on islands and one-on-ones , but it can still work .
I just think it ’ s not something you want to make a habit of .
neil : And that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Garoppolo wasn ’ t especially bad against the blitz last season .
He ranked 13th in QBR vs. the blitz in 2019 .
But 2020 Jimmy G. seems to be … off .
And hobbled .
Salfino : Maybe many things can work against Jimmy G. right now .
joshua.hermsmeyer : The Nick Mullens Question continues to linger .
He looks … as good as Jimmy when Jimmy is healthy a lot of the time .
Salfino : I guess the theory would be that Jimmy G. can ’ t deal with pressure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the high ankle sprain , and he can ’ t beat you deep because he can ’ t push off his back leg .
He ’ s one of those guys who has to be 100 percent to be viable — 75 percent of Garoppolo is a backup at best .
neil : The Niners are on track for one of those classic Super Bowl Loser ’ s Hangover/Curse seasons .
Lowest playoff odds of any team in that division !
Salfino : In fairness , they have been demolished by injuries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Super Bowl hangovers .
sara.ziegler : Their injuries certainly don ’ t help .
It ’ s been kind of impressive to me that they ’ ve stayed competitive , given all the pieces they ’ re missing .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Agreed , Sara .
It ’ s a credit to Kyle Shanahan and his offensive creativity .
But I saw someone say recently that the league should be glad that two of the top young offensive minds in the league are saddled with QBs named Goff and Garoppolo .
Salfino : And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ land .
sara.ziegler : So then , there are four teams in our model with title odds of at least 12 percent : the Chiefs ( 24 percent ) , Steelers ( 14 percent ) , Buccaneers ( 12 percent ) and Seahawks ( 12 percent ) .
Do those odds seem right to you all ?
Would anyone take a team not in the top four at this moment ?
Salfino : I think given the weakness of that group and the lack of a team that ’ s clearly solid on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least doesn ’ t have a 43-year-old QB ) , I ’ d have to take the field .
But one team ?
No idea .
neil : Yeah , the teams not in that group all have some pretty big flaws , too .
Maybe the Ravens if they can get Lamar back on track ?
Salfino : I hate saying that the Bucs are the most balanced team because I can not take another Tom Brady narrative .
But it ’ s true .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I would not count @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rodgers has played to date .
And while I would like to say Baltimore is still a contender , the loss of Ronnie Stanley for the year , the news today about Marlon Humphrey testing positive for COVID-19 and the recent play of Jackson makes me think it ’ s a long shot .
neil : Awful news for Stanley .
Right after signing that big extension , too .
Salfino : That Stanley injury is so bad .
He was their second-most valuable player .
sara.ziegler : Those kinds of injuries don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but man , they can really hurt a team .
I also think the Packers are going to contend , though I ’ m less sure of that after Sunday ’ s game .
( Though the conditions were bad and Dalvin Cook was good . )
Salfino : Look at Sara soft-selling the Vikings , the most shocking performance of Week 8 ( in a good way ) .
neil : The Vikings may have exposed some big issues with the Packers ’ defense .
They were really not good Sunday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vikes . )
sara.ziegler : The Vikings and Packers combined for five total possessions in the first half , and the fifth one was with just 25 seconds left before halftime .
That was a weird-ass game .
Salfino : No one who played Cook in fantasy on Sunday will forget that game .
neil : Cook reminded me of the NFC championship game last year , with Raheem Mostert and the Niners just running all over the Packers D. joshua.hermsmeyer : Time to write the “ Don ’ t Tell Dalvin Cook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
neil : Hey , I love a good excuse to extol the virtues of RBs .
sara.ziegler : The Packers defense had been pretty inconsistent against the run before that game , but the Vikings ’ 173 total rushing yards were by far the most they ’ ve allowed .
Maybe generational talents just take over sometimes .
Salfino : I know pass defense is more important , but it ’ s humiliating for a defense to get trucked like that by a back .
joshua.hermsmeyer : What ’ s odd is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are ones where you ’ d still bet on a QB like Rodgers to bring the losing team back .
Salfino : Cook and Alvin Kamara are the only backs in the game today that seem to move the needle .
Salfino : Yeah , Henry .
He ’ s so old school though .
One dimensional .
neil : I thought Rodgers was going to do his traditional game-winning Hail Mary .
But he got karate-chopped before he could get the pass off .
sara.ziegler : I ’ m not gon na @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that moment .
sara.ziegler : So we have mixed feelings about the Packers .
What about … the Bears ?
neil : What about them ?
LOL .
I ’ m sorry — I just wanted an excuse to bring up the amazing fight in the third quarter of that game .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Apparently Aqib Talib ’ s move of poking the offensive player in the eye is still in use across the league .
I think that ’ s what started the helmet punching extravaganza on the play prior to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight was awesome .
I know we ’ re not supposed to say it .
But no one is going to get hurt with a helmet on .
It ’ s playground stuff .
sara.ziegler : Well , the guy punching a helmet might get hurt .
neil : Right , probably hurt his hand as much as anything .
neil : The whole thing was an ugly mess in Chicago .
And also there was a fight .
Salfino : The Bears probably had their best game for actually looking like a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think they have really good receivers , and if they junked the running game , they could be a tough out given that their defense is stout .
Maybe I ’ m the last believer in Nick Foles .
Not that he ’ s good , but that he can be good enough , sometimes .
neil : I , too , have been a Foles stan .
But it ’ s getting harder to believe he is part of the solution for them .
Not that Mitch Trubisky is , either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very much .
I believe he ’ s below average .
Strongly .
neil : We ’ ve said it before , but this is a Classic Bears team .
The only shock Sunday was that their kicker made a kick ( to force OT ) .
sara.ziegler : All right , I wanted to talk a little about some of the newest quarterbacks in the league , two of whom became starters on Sunday .
Tua Tagovailoa made his starting debut for the Dolphins and walked away with a win ; Joe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second win of the season and their first over a team with a winning record in 15 games ; Ben DiNucci started in relief of the many injured Cowboys QBs ; and though the Los Angeles Chargers blew yet another double-digit lead , Justin Herbert has emerged as a potential star , throwing for 1,820 yards in six starts , with 15 touchdowns against five interceptions .
Which of the starting rookie quarterbacks has impressed you the most ?
neil : It ’ s got ta be Herbert , although the Chargers continue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joshua.hermsmeyer : Herbert is the easy answer , but Burrow has quietly played high-level football .
neil : He was certainly very impressive Sunday !
Salfino : I ’ ve been saying since the first week in October that Herbert is the Dan Marino of this draft class .
Nothing in Week 8 dissuaded me from that .
But Burrow looks like he ’ s going to be a hit , too .
His game is more limited though .
So so is his upside .
Herbert is doing all of his history-making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s cute how you included Ben DiNucci in there , btw , Sara .
People forget the NFL is actually hard , sometimes .
neil : Playing QB for the Cowboys is All-Madden difficulty .
Salfino : Were you guys surprised that Tua just could not get anything going ?
It was a tough opponent .
neil : Not really ; rookies tend to struggle in their first start .
sara.ziegler : He also didn ’ t really need to do much , given Miami ’ s defensive scoring .
neil : But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been telling y ’ all this .
Its defense is legit .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I thought it might have just been FitzMagic .
neil : Brian Flores is already Bill Belichick ’ s most successful disciple .
Salfino : Flores has McVay ’ s number .
Did you see that McVay apparently changed his plays to help Goff succeed against Flores where he failed so badly in the Super Bowl ?
It didn ’ t work .
neil : The turnovers helped .
But their defense played 25.9 expected points added better than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ games .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I will say I appreciate that the Dolphins are 29th in yards per rush allowed but 13th in net yards per pass attempt .
They have the right priorities !
Salfino : So true , Josh .
Such an obvious way to build a defense .
neil : All I know is that the Phins have the fifth-best Simple Rating in the league so far , per Pro-Football-Reference.com : sara.ziegler : So can they thread the needle of contending while breaking in a rookie quarterback ?
Salfino : Well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a typical rookie QB , no .
I don ’ t see the Dolphins being as strong everywhere else like , say , the 2009 Jets were with a typical rookie QB .
And the Jets needed the Colts and Peyton Manning to lay down to even get into the playoffs .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Tua has 49ers great Jesse Sapolu in his corner , though : neil : The Dolphins ’ remaining schedule should at least be slightly easier than it has been so far .
The bigger problem is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that division now , with an 84 percent chance of winning .
And the AFC wild-card battle is a tough numbers game .
Salfino : The Patriots , though , are clearly the third-best team in the division , and if the Jets weren ’ t in their division , they ’ d be fourth .
They are officially in the Trevor Lawrence sweepstakes ( though they won ’ t make it ) and are a legit 2-5 team right now .
Slow on defense .
Slow on offense .
No star @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encouraged to see the Patriots show a little life against the Bills , though .
Cam Newton looked better , at least .
neil : Yeah .
They had a tying FG attempt all set up .
And then … not .
Salfino : Maybe Cam is in fumble jail now .
Belichick seemed pissed .
joshua.hermsmeyer : That win over New England snapped a seven-game losing streak to Belichick for the Bills .
And it ’ s the first time since 2002 that the Patriots have lost four in a row .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ historic : They were the only team since 2003 without a four-game losing streak .
sara.ziegler : Wow .
The wonders of 2020 will never cease .

Are We Sold On The Steelers, Seahawks And Other Would-Be Super Bowl Contenders?
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): The FiveThirtyEight model is in overdrive. Will the red team win it all again? Can a blue team recapture glory? There were strong results Sunday in Pennsylvania and Florida but more troubling indicators in Wisconsin and Michigan. And Arizona just took the week off.
Oh, right — this is football, not politics. Week 8 may prove to be a tipping point for the NFL’s Super Bowl hopefuls, but we won’t know for sure until long after the presidential votes are counted. (Uh, we hope.)
Two of those hopefuls — the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks — got big wins Sunday in divisional matchups, and they now find themselves in the top four of our Super Bowl odds. Let’s start with the Steelers: Are any of you more convinced of their strength after their win over Baltimore?
joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): The Steelers are the Pennsylvania of NFL teams. They could go either way, depending on the ground game. They barely beat the Ravens despite Lamar Jackson finishing the week ranked dead last in QBR, and the Ravens still had a chance on the final play of the game.
Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor): If you could put those teams together, you’d have a legitimate Super Bowl favorite. Despite blitzing Jimmy Garoppolo into oblivion (and into the medical tent), the Seahawks have massive pass-defense problems. And the Steelers have a defense that can pass for a Steel Curtain in today’s defensive-starved game, but they are saddled with a pop-gun passing game and a QB who no longer hangs in for the big play.
neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): Yeah, I still don’t think Pittsburgh is especially dominant by 7-0 team standards. Since 1970, 39 teams have started 7-0. By Elo, the 2020 Steelers are 35th best through seven games.
Among 7-0 teams, the Steelers are just ‘meh’ Highest Elo ratings through the first seven games for teams that started an NFL season 7-0, 1970-2020 Year Team Elo Year Team Elo 1 2007 IND 1757 21 1975 MIN 1676 2 2007 NE 1756 22 1983 DAL 1674 3 2015 NE 1750 23 1985 CHI 1673 4 1990 SF 1747 24 2012 ATL 1666 5 1998 DEN 1736 25 2015 CIN 1666 6 2011 GB 1735 26 1990 NYG 1659 7 2019 NE 1720 27 1998 MIN 1659 8 1984 MIA 1711 28 1973 MIN 1657 9 2005 IND 1707 29 1985 LAR 1651 10 2006 IND 1705 30 2008 TEN 1650 11 2009 IND 1703 31 1991 NO 1647 12 1978 LAR 1699 32 2018 LAR 1647 13 2015 DEN 1698 33 2003 KC 1645 14 1978 PIT 1691 34 2006 CHI 1640 15 1991 WSH 1690 35 2020 PIT 1635 16 1972 MIA 1689 36 2015 CAR 1632 17 2004 PHI 1688 37 2019 SF 1611 18 1977 DAL 1682 38 1974 ARI 1587 19 2009 NO 1681 39 2013 KC 1516 20 2000 MIN 1681 Source: ESPN Stats & Information Group
Salfino: I can see a little of the 1990 Giants in the 2020 Steelers.
neil: The Steelers beat the Ravens mainly because of turnovers. They were +3 there, but they lost the yardage battle by 236 — and like Josh said, they still only barely won.
Salfino: They seem to have Lamar Jackson’s number.
Lamar Jackson had a career-high 4 turnovers today, breaking his previous high of 3, in his only other start against the Steelers. Jackson has 7 turnovers in 2 starts against the Steelers, and 15 in 27 starts against all other teams pic.twitter.com/KhJrMBUNTK — ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 1, 2020
joshua.hermsmeyer: Russell Wilson and the ’Hawks have a much sturdier claim to being a contender. Since he’s been the starter, the Seahawks are 52-16 at home. Home-field advantage, even in the COVID-19 era, may end up being important for them if they do make a deep playoff run.
sara.ziegler: Right, and though the Niners showed some signs of life late, that game was never really in doubt — and now Russ & Co. have a game on everyone else in the stacked NFC West (with Jared Goff and the Rams also losing). Did Sunday’s game change any of your minds about Seattle?
neil: idk if my mind changed here — we knew this already — but Russ continues to be amazing. He has 26 TD passes already!
Russell Wilson is enjoying a historic first half Most touchdown passes by a quarterback in their team’s first seven games of a season, 1950-2020 Player Season Team Att. Cmp% Yds TD Int QB Rtg Tom Brady 2007 NE 229 73.8% 2,125 27 2 137.9 Russell Wilson 2020 SEA 256 71.5 2,151 26 6 120.8 Peyton Manning 2013 DEN 289 71.6 2,565 25 3 123.3 Patrick Mahomes 2018 KC 251 64.9 2,223 22 5 114.0 Peyton Manning 2004 IND 240 65.0 2,161 22 4 117.4 Peyton Manning 2014 DEN 252 69.1 2,134 22 3 119.0 Brett Favre 1996 GB 240 57.9 1,787 21 5 101.9 Kurt Warner 1999 STL 208 70.7 1,859 21 3 125.9 Tom Brady 2015 NE 289 68.9 2,410 20 1 115.8 Drew Brees 2012 NO 315 59.7 2,310 20 8 93.0 D. Culpepper 2004 MIN 258 70.9 2,180 20 5 114.2 Daryle Lamonica 1969 OAK 238 52.1 1,662 20 12 81.6 Andrew Luck 2018 IND 311 65.3 1,948 20 8 93.3 Dan Marino 1984 MIA 211 67.3 2,074 20 4 122.8 Aaron Rodgers 2011 GB 239 71.6 2,372 20 3 125.7 Aaron Rodgers 2020 GB 249 65.9 1,948 20 2 113.0 Steve Young 1998 SF 270 61.1 2,249 20 5 104.7 Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
That’s the second most by any QB through a team’s first seven games of a season since at least 1950.
Salfino: More Russ:
This is Russell Wilson's 4th game this season with 4 Pass TD, breaking a tie with Dave Krieg (1985) for the most in a season in Seahawks history. Wilson is now 1 Pass TD away from tying 2007 Tom Brady for most Pass TD through seven team games in NFL history. pic.twitter.com/TsGMbubxIw — ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 1, 2020
When you’re mentioned in the same sentence as Dave Krieg, you must be doing something right. 🙂
neil: LOL
I love Dave Krieg. One of my favorite VHS tapes growing up, “The NFL’s 100 Greatest Football Follies,” had a whole segment devoted to him being history’s most prolific fumbler.
Salfino: Krieg was the Fitz of his time.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I remember that tape!
Salfino: Do you think the blitzing can be something that carries over? Maybe mask a bad secondary with a pass rush, even if you have to cheat to get one? Analytics says this is the opposite of how you should defend the pass though, right?
The Seahawks blitzed on 23 of the 49ers' 45 dropbacks (51%) Sunday. That's their highest rate since 2010 and more than double the rate they had been blitzing (24%) this season, per ESPN Stats & Info. "I thought that the pressure we threw at them helped… https://t.co/ChTh9Bw30S — Brady Henderson (@BradyHenderson) November 2, 2020
joshua.hermsmeyer: Mike, I think if you decide the path to victory is pressure on the QB, you create that pressure however you can. Ideally you do it while also not putting your cornerbacks on islands and one-on-ones, but it can still work. I just think it’s not something you want to make a habit of.
neil: And that’s an interesting stat, Mike, because Garoppolo wasn’t especially bad against the blitz last season. He ranked 13th in QBR vs. the blitz in 2019.
But 2020 Jimmy G. seems to be … off. And hobbled.
Salfino: Maybe many things can work against Jimmy G. right now.
joshua.hermsmeyer: The Nick Mullens Question continues to linger. He looks … as good as Jimmy when Jimmy is healthy a lot of the time.
Salfino: I guess the theory would be that Jimmy G. can’t deal with pressure because he’s immobile due to the high ankle sprain, and he can’t beat you deep because he can’t push off his back leg. He’s one of those guys who has to be 100 percent to be viable — 75 percent of Garoppolo is a backup at best.
neil: The Niners are on track for one of those classic Super Bowl Loser’s Hangover/Curse seasons.
Lowest playoff odds of any team in that division!
Salfino: In fairness, they have been demolished by injuries, which is probably a big part of Super Bowl hangovers.
sara.ziegler: Their injuries certainly don’t help. It’s been kind of impressive to me that they’ve stayed competitive, given all the pieces they’re missing.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Agreed, Sara. It’s a credit to Kyle Shanahan and his offensive creativity. But I saw someone say recently that the league should be glad that two of the top young offensive minds in the league are saddled with QBs named Goff and Garoppolo.
Salfino: And now George Kittle is back in MRI land.
sara.ziegler: So then, there are four teams in our model with title odds of at least 12 percent: the Chiefs (24 percent), Steelers (14 percent), Buccaneers (12 percent) and Seahawks (12 percent). Do those odds seem right to you all? Would anyone take a team not in the top four at this moment?
Salfino: I think given the weakness of that group and the lack of a team that’s clearly solid on both sides of the ball (or at least doesn’t have a 43-year-old QB), I’d have to take the field. But one team? No idea.
neil: Yeah, the teams not in that group all have some pretty big flaws, too.
Maybe the Ravens if they can get Lamar back on track?
Salfino: I hate saying that the Bucs are the most balanced team because I cannot take another Tom Brady narrative. But it’s true.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I would not count out the Packers, given how Aaron Rodgers has played to date. And while I would like to say Baltimore is still a contender, the loss of Ronnie Stanley for the year, the news today about Marlon Humphrey testing positive for COVID-19 and the recent play of Jackson makes me think it’s a long shot.
neil: Awful news for Stanley. Right after signing that big extension, too.
Salfino: That Stanley injury is so bad. He was their second-most valuable player.
sara.ziegler: Those kinds of injuries don’t get as much press, but man, they can really hurt a team.
I also think the Packers are going to contend, though I’m less sure of that after Sunday’s game. (Though the conditions were bad and Dalvin Cook was good.)
Salfino: Look at Sara soft-selling the Vikings, the most shocking performance of Week 8 (in a good way).
neil: The Vikings may have exposed some big issues with the Packers’ defense. They were really not good Sunday. (No offense to Cook and the Vikes.)
sara.ziegler: The Vikings and Packers combined for five total possessions in the first half, and the fifth one was with just 25 seconds left before halftime. That was a weird-ass game.
Salfino: No one who played Cook in fantasy on Sunday will forget that game.
neil: Cook reminded me of the NFC championship game last year, with Raheem Mostert and the Niners just running all over the Packers D.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Time to write the “Don’t Tell Dalvin Cook RBs Don’t Matter” piece.
sara.ziegler: LOLOL
neil: Hey, I love a good excuse to extol the virtues of RBs.
sara.ziegler: The Packers defense had been pretty inconsistent against the run before that game, but the Vikings’ 173 total rushing yards were by far the most they’ve allowed. Maybe generational talents just take over sometimes.
Salfino: I know pass defense is more important, but it’s humiliating for a defense to get trucked like that by a back.
joshua.hermsmeyer: What’s odd is that games like this against the Vikings are ones where you’d still bet on a QB like Rodgers to bring the losing team back.
Salfino: Cook and Alvin Kamara are the only backs in the game today that seem to move the needle.
neil: Hey, it wasn’t Derrick Henry’s fault the Titans lost.
Salfino: Yeah, Henry. He’s so old school though. One dimensional.
neil: I thought Rodgers was going to do his traditional game-winning Hail Mary. But he got karate-chopped before he could get the pass off.
sara.ziegler: I’m not gonna lie: I took a screenshot of that moment.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Sara the Meme Lord.
neil: New desktop background.
And phone wallpaper.
And zoom background.
sara.ziegler: Zoom background!!!!!!!!!
neil: LOL
sara.ziegler: So we have mixed feelings about the Packers. What about … the Bears?
joshua.hermsmeyer: Come on.
neil: What about them? LOL.
sara.ziegler: Hahahaha
I’m sorry — I just wanted an excuse to bring up the amazing fight in the third quarter of that game.
https://twitter.com/tylerrickytynes/status/1323042592020402184
neil: Never EVER touch a man’s mouthguard.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Apparently Aqib Talib’s move of poking the offensive player in the eye is still in use across the league. I think that’s what started the helmet punching extravaganza on the play prior to the fracas.
Salfino: Oh, that fight was awesome. I know we’re not supposed to say it. But no one is going to get hurt with a helmet on. It’s playground stuff.
sara.ziegler: Well, the guy punching a helmet might get hurt.
neil: Right, probably hurt his hand as much as anything.
Salfino: Exactly.
neil: The whole thing was an ugly mess in Chicago. And also there was a fight.
sara.ziegler: 🤣
Salfino: The Bears probably had their best game for actually looking like a quasi-playoff team, and they lost. I think they have really good receivers, and if they junked the running game, they could be a tough out given that their defense is stout.
Maybe I’m the last believer in Nick Foles. Not that he’s good, but that he can be good enough, sometimes.
neil: I, too, have been a Foles stan. But it’s getting harder to believe he is part of the solution for them. Not that Mitch Trubisky is, either.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I believe in Foles very much. I believe he’s below average. Strongly.
neil: We’ve said it before, but this is a Classic Bears team. The only shock Sunday was that their kicker made a kick (to force OT).
sara.ziegler: All right, I wanted to talk a little about some of the newest quarterbacks in the league, two of whom became starters on Sunday. Tua Tagovailoa made his starting debut for the Dolphins and walked away with a win; Joe Burrow led his Cincinnati Bengals to their second win of the season and their first over a team with a winning record in 15 games; Ben DiNucci started in relief of the many injured Cowboys QBs; and though the Los Angeles Chargers blew yet another double-digit lead, Justin Herbert has emerged as a potential star, throwing for 1,820 yards in six starts, with 15 touchdowns against five interceptions.
Which of the starting rookie quarterbacks has impressed you the most?
neil: It’s gotta be Herbert, although the Chargers continue to be Classic Chargers as well.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Herbert is the easy answer, but Burrow has quietly played high-level football.
neil: He was certainly very impressive Sunday!
Salfino: I’ve been saying since the first week in October that Herbert is the Dan Marino of this draft class. Nothing in Week 8 dissuaded me from that. But Burrow looks like he’s going to be a hit, too. His game is more limited though. So so is his upside.
Herbert is doing all of his history-making despite this:
Justin Herbert has thrown for 1,542 yards, 2nd most through 5 career games in NFL history behind Cam Newton (1,610). Herbert has done this while being pressured on an NFL-high 38.4% of his dropbacks. pic.twitter.com/4tdfJbm5lG — ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) November 1, 2020
neil: It’s cute how you included Ben DiNucci in there, btw, Sara.
sara.ziegler: 😉
joshua.hermsmeyer:
A note from Cowboys QB Ben DiNucci: "This NFL thing, it’s hard." — Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) November 2, 2020
People forget the NFL is actually hard, sometimes.
sara.ziegler: I mean, he’s not wrong.
neil: Playing QB for the Cowboys is All-Madden difficulty.
Salfino: Were you guys surprised that Tua just could not get anything going? It was a tough opponent.
neil: Not really; rookies tend to struggle in their first start.
sara.ziegler: He also didn’t really need to do much, given Miami’s defensive scoring.
neil: But Miami is good! I’ve been telling y’all this. Its defense is legit.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I thought it might have just been FitzMagic.
neil: Brian Flores is already Bill Belichick’s most successful disciple.
Salfino: Flores has McVay’s number. Did you see that McVay apparently changed his plays to help Goff succeed against Flores where he failed so badly in the Super Bowl? It didn’t work.
neil: The turnovers helped. But their defense played 25.9 expected points added better than expected based on the Rams’ other games.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I will say I appreciate that the Dolphins are 29th in yards per rush allowed but 13th in net yards per pass attempt. They have the right priorities!
Salfino: So true, Josh. Such an obvious way to build a defense.
neil: All I know is that the Phins have the fifth-best Simple Rating in the league so far, per Pro-Football-Reference.com:
The Dolphins have played surprisingly well so far Best NFL teams of 2020, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com’s Simple Rating System Simple Rating Team W L Tie Win% Off. Def. Overall 1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5 2 0 .714 +7.1 +5.7 +12.8 2 Kansas City Chiefs 7 1 0 .875 6.4 4.7 11.1 3 Baltimore Ravens 5 2 0 .714 3.6 6.4 10.0 4 Pittsburgh Steelers 7 0 0 .000 4.0 4.4 8.3 5 Miami Dolphins 4 3 0 .571 0.9 5.1 6.0 6 Seattle Seahawks 6 1 0 .857 9.0 -3.9 5.2 7 Green Bay Packers 5 2 0 .714 4.7 0.2 4.9 8 Arizona Cardinals 5 2 0 .714 1.8 2.5 4.3 9 New Orleans Saints 5 2 0 .714 5.4 -1.6 3.7 10 Indianapolis Colts 5 2 0 .714 0.9 2.8 3.7 The Simple Rating System adjusts each team’s points-per-game margin for the strength of its opponents. Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
sara.ziegler: So can they thread the needle of contending while breaking in a rookie quarterback?
Salfino: Well, if we’re expecting Tua to be a typical rookie QB, no. I don’t see the Dolphins being as strong everywhere else like, say, the 2009 Jets were with a typical rookie QB. And the Jets needed the Colts and Peyton Manning to lay down to even get into the playoffs.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Tua has 49ers great Jesse Sapolu in his corner, though:
.@wyche89: Tua Tagovailoa's first start monumental for Polynesian football communityhttps://t.co/M1iwK1sOU4 pic.twitter.com/Dyw1O3Dtq8 — Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) November 2, 2020
neil: The Dolphins’ remaining schedule should at least be slightly easier than it has been so far. The bigger problem is that the Bills seem to be in command of that division now, with an 84 percent chance of winning. And the AFC wild-card battle is a tough numbers game.
Salfino: The Patriots, though, are clearly the third-best team in the division, and if the Jets weren’t in their division, they’d be fourth. They are officially in the Trevor Lawrence sweepstakes (though they won’t make it) and are a legit 2-5 team right now. Slow on defense. Slow on offense. No star power anywhere.
sara.ziegler: I was encouraged to see the Patriots show a little life against the Bills, though. Cam Newton looked better, at least.
neil: Yeah. They had a tying FG attempt all set up. And then … not.
Salfino: Maybe Cam is in fumble jail now. Belichick seemed pissed.
joshua.hermsmeyer: That win over New England snapped a seven-game losing streak to Belichick for the Bills. And it’s the first time since 2002 that the Patriots have lost four in a row.
Salfino: The Patriots’ dominance was historic: They were the only team since 2003 without a four-game losing streak.
sara.ziegler: Wow. The wonders of 2020 will never cease.
Check out our latest NFL predictions.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-02--What Two Studies With Very Different Findings Can Tell Us About Voting In A Pandemic

It ’ s not even Election Day yet , but tens of millions of Americans have already gone through the process of waiting in line to cast a vote .
Even for those with the options of mail-in and drop-off ballots , early voting lines have stretched for blocks in multiple states .
Theoretically , more early voting means fewer people will try to pack into the polls on Election Day proper — a good thing during a pandemic .
But when early voting , itself , results in big crowds — and the voters just keep on coming — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re really avoiding as much viral transmission as we ’ d hoped .
How big a COVID-19 risk is it to vote in person ?
Here at FiveThirtyEight , we ’ d normally turn to scientific research to answer a question like that .
So we did that .
And , well … There are two studies that tried to quantify how voting in the Wisconsin primary in early April contributed to the spread of COVID-19 .
One of them concludes that it didn ’ t .
The other says the opposite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling site , the more local COVID-19 cases occurred afterward .
It ’ s hugely consequential which study ’ s conclusions are accurate , given the millions of people voting in person this election season .
And experts told me one study is probably getting closer to the truth than the other .
But neither study really fully answers the question — a fact that ’ s also hugely consequential to understanding COVID-19 ’ s risks .
Studying a new virus in real time is frustratingly inexact , especially when our country has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thoroughly .
If you can still think back across the vast eons of time to April of 2020 , you ’ ll recall that the early weeks of the pandemic were a chaotic period for primary voting .
In Wisconsin , it wasn ’ t clear until almost the day of the election whether voting would happen in person and when .
The tumultuous nature of that primary is what attracted researchers to studying it .
“ I saw in the paper that they were forcing people to show up to vote .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ expecting to find lots of infections , ” said Lawrence Wein , professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Business .
Because of his focus on health care , he wanted to know how mismanagement of an election might contribute to the spread of COVID-19 .
Wein ’ s study calculated the state ’ s R-naught value — a measurement of how quickly the virus is spreading — in the weeks leading up to and after the April 7 primary election .
In that time , the R-naught didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his data showed hospitalizations in the state actually went down in the weeks after the vote , suggesting his calculations weren ’ t just a fluke caused by inadequate testing .
It wasn ’ t what Wein had expected , but his data suggested the steps election officials had taken — wearing masks and gloves , making hand sanitizer available to voters and facilitating social distancing — helped to keep COVID-19 from spreading at the polls .
But wait a second .
Because while Wein ’ s approach tells us something , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There ’ s no counterfactual , as in no way to tease out what would have happened if the election hadn ’ t been held .
Lacking that , you don ’ t know if a static R-naught means the election didn ’ t change anything , or if it means cases would have fallen otherwise and the election just kept them at the same level .
That ’ s where the other study comes in .
Chad Cotti , a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh , saw that districts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the primary in the same way .
Election sites were being closed and consolidated , Cotti said , but it wasn ’ t uniform .
The result was big differences from county to county in the density of voters per polling location .
“ I live in Appleton and I don ’ t think we had any ” consolidation , he said .
“ But Green Bay had significant consolidation , and those counties are adjacent to each other.
” Cotti ’ s paper used those differences to create a sort-of counterfactual .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ have happened to the overall state COVID-19 count if the primary election never happened .
But we can know whether counties that crammed more voters into fewer locations had a bigger effect than ones that didn ’ t .
And here there was a difference : A 10 percent increase in in-person voters at a given location turned out to be associated with an 18.4 percent increase in that county ’ s COVID-19 cases .
More voters , more virus .
Cotti ’ s paper is probably providing some insight Wein ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is perfect .
Cotti ’ s study , for example , is still a preprint that ’ s being revised as it goes through the peer review process .
One thing he told me the reviewers want him to address is the fact that the relationship between increases in voters-per-location and increases in local COVID cases is probably not a linear one .
“ Adding one person to a polling place doesn ’ t mean an incremental increase .
There ’ s probably a relatively safe density and then it starts to ramp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So twice as large a group may be more than twice as dangerous , ” he said .
But more importantly , other experts told me , neither of these studies can really tell us how risky elections are compared to other behavior .
To do that , you would have to randomly assign people to voting and non-voting groups , and see which one was more likely to contract COVID-19 , said Tariq Cheema , a pulmonary and critical care physician for Allegheny Health Network who has published research on COVID-19 transmission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know , not really ethical .
In fact , said Jennifer Dowd , a professor of demography and population health at Oxford University in England , this is the kind of challenge that makes sociology-based research a real bear even in the best of situations .
Say you want to know how a change in policy — like increasing the minimum wage — changes outcomes in a given city or state .
You ’ ll run into the same kinds of problems , she said .
How do you know that the two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the same trajectory had one of them not raised the minimum wage ?
What if places more likely to raise the wage had something different about them to begin with ?
How do you separate cause and effect ?
“ It ’ s a very persistent problem in social science .
And with COVID , it ’ s been really hard , ” Dowd said .
For example , we don ’ t know if the data from the Cotti paper tells us about the risks of voting — or if it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more likely to be socializing in groups , generally .
The data is going to be messy , Dowd told me .
And any research purporting to show the impact of any given event on transmission is going to be imperfect .
That problem gets compounded by the fact that the United States never implemented a consistent and widespread test and trace program .
“ If you really had a comprehensive program and you can look at clusters , you ’ d be able to get very descriptive data .
You don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see the patterns more clearly , ” Dowd said .
Instead , if we want to know how risky voting is , we ’ re basically left to make inferences from other research .
For instance , we know group situations are riskier .
We know breathing aerosols matters more for transmission than touching surfaces .
We know from studies of cases in places with more intensive tracing programs that it ’ s significantly safer to be outdoors than in .
We know mask use and distancing reduces transmission .
And the takeaway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns are the lines , ” Cheema said .
Actual time voting is short and there aren ’ t a lot of other people around .
But hours-long lines leave a lot of time for big groups of people to be near each other , to eat and drink and take their masks off .
If those lines are inside , rather than out , the risks just go up .
He expects to see cases of COVID-19 spiking around the country sometime about Nov. 15 .
He likened it to the risks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a well-ventilated airplane with a mask on doesn ’ t seem to be a high-risk activity — but sitting around a crowded airport is .
Dowd had less concern about a voting-related spike but agreed that the waiting is the hardest part .
It is also the part voters have the least control over .
You can choose to wear a mask .
You can choose to stand at a safe distance .
You can go away and come back later when the line is shorter .
But you can ’ t generally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wait outside .
That ’ s why Cotti is happy the general election has had more options for how to vote than the primary elections offered .
“ More voting choices , a longer time when you can vote — that should reduce the number of people at the poll , ” he said .
“ It should reduce the risk .
”

It’s not even Election Day yet, but tens of millions of Americans have already gone through the process of waiting in line to cast a vote. Even for those with the options of mail-in and drop-off ballots, early voting lines have stretched for blocks in multiple states.
Theoretically, more early voting means fewer people will try to pack into the polls on Election Day proper — a good thing during a pandemic. But when early voting, itself, results in big crowds — and the voters just keep on coming — it’s worth wondering whether we’re really avoiding as much viral transmission as we’d hoped.
How big a COVID-19 risk is it to vote in person? Here at FiveThirtyEight, we’d normally turn to scientific research to answer a question like that. So we did that. And, well …
There are two studies that tried to quantify how voting in the Wisconsin primary in early April contributed to the spread of COVID-19. One of them concludes that it didn’t. The other says the opposite: the busier and more crowded the polling site, the more local COVID-19 cases occurred afterward.
It’s hugely consequential which study’s conclusions are accurate, given the millions of people voting in person this election season. And experts told me one study is probably getting closer to the truth than the other. But neither study really fully answers the question — a fact that’s also hugely consequential to understanding COVID-19’s risks. Studying a new virus in real time is frustratingly inexact, especially when our country has missed crucial opportunities to test and trace thoroughly.
If you can still think back across the vast eons of time to April of 2020, you’ll recall that the early weeks of the pandemic were a chaotic period for primary voting. In Wisconsin, it wasn’t clear until almost the day of the election whether voting would happen in person and when.
The tumultuous nature of that primary is what attracted researchers to studying it. “I saw in the paper that they were forcing people to show up to vote. I was abhorred by it and was expecting to find lots of infections,” said Lawrence Wein, professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Business. Because of his focus on health care, he wanted to know how mismanagement of an election might contribute to the spread of COVID-19.
Wein’s study calculated the state’s R-naught value — a measurement of how quickly the virus is spreading — in the weeks leading up to and after the April 7 primary election. In that time, the R-naught didn’t seem to change much. And his data showed hospitalizations in the state actually went down in the weeks after the vote, suggesting his calculations weren’t just a fluke caused by inadequate testing. It wasn’t what Wein had expected, but his data suggested the steps election officials had taken — wearing masks and gloves, making hand sanitizer available to voters and facilitating social distancing — helped to keep COVID-19 from spreading at the polls.
(FiveThirtyEight has published separate research by two sociologists that reached a similar finding.)
But wait a second. Because while Wein’s approach tells us something, it’s not the whole picture. There’s no counterfactual, as in no way to tease out what would have happened if the election hadn’t been held. Lacking that, you don’t know if a static R-naught means the election didn’t change anything, or if it means cases would have fallen otherwise and the election just kept them at the same level.
That’s where the other study comes in. Chad Cotti, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, saw that districts throughout the state weren’t approaching the primary in the same way. Election sites were being closed and consolidated, Cotti said, but it wasn’t uniform. The result was big differences from county to county in the density of voters per polling location. “I live in Appleton and I don’t think we had any” consolidation, he said. “But Green Bay had significant consolidation, and those counties are adjacent to each other.”
Cotti’s paper used those differences to create a sort-of counterfactual. We’ll never know what would have happened to the overall state COVID-19 count if the primary election never happened. But we can know whether counties that crammed more voters into fewer locations had a bigger effect than ones that didn’t.
And here there was a difference: A 10 percent increase in in-person voters at a given location turned out to be associated with an 18.4 percent increase in that county’s COVID-19 cases. More voters, more virus.
Cotti’s paper is probably providing some insight Wein’s lacks, but neither of these papers is perfect. Cotti’s study, for example, is still a preprint that’s being revised as it goes through the peer review process. One thing he told me the reviewers want him to address is the fact that the relationship between increases in voters-per-location and increases in local COVID cases is probably not a linear one. “Adding one person to a polling place doesn’t mean an incremental increase. There’s probably a relatively safe density and then it starts to ramp up quickly after a certain point. So twice as large a group may be more than twice as dangerous,” he said.
But more importantly, other experts told me, neither of these studies can really tell us how risky elections are compared to other behavior. To do that, you would have to randomly assign people to voting and non-voting groups, and see which one was more likely to contract COVID-19, said Tariq Cheema, a pulmonary and critical care physician for Allegheny Health Network who has published research on COVID-19 transmission. And that’s, you know, not really ethical.
In fact, said Jennifer Dowd, a professor of demography and population health at Oxford University in England, this is the kind of challenge that makes sociology-based research a real bear even in the best of situations. Say you want to know how a change in policy — like increasing the minimum wage — changes outcomes in a given city or state. You’ll run into the same kinds of problems, she said. How do you know that the two places you are comparing would have been on the same trajectory had one of them not raised the minimum wage? What if places more likely to raise the wage had something different about them to begin with? How do you separate cause and effect?
“It’s a very persistent problem in social science. And with COVID, it’s been really hard,” Dowd said. For example, we don’t know if the data from the Cotti paper tells us about the risks of voting — or if it tells us that people who vote are more likely to be socializing in groups, generally. The data is going to be messy, Dowd told me. And any research purporting to show the impact of any given event on transmission is going to be imperfect.
That problem gets compounded by the fact that the United States never implemented a consistent and widespread test and trace program. “If you really had a comprehensive program and you can look at clusters, you’d be able to get very descriptive data. You don’t know for sure but you could see the patterns more clearly,” Dowd said.
Instead, if we want to know how risky voting is, we’re basically left to make inferences from other research. For instance, we know group situations are riskier. We know breathing aerosols matters more for transmission than touching surfaces. We know from studies of cases in places with more intensive tracing programs that it’s significantly safer to be outdoors than in. We know mask use and distancing reduces transmission.
And the takeaway from that for voting? “My concerns are the lines,” Cheema said. Actual time voting is short and there aren’t a lot of other people around. But hours-long lines leave a lot of time for big groups of people to be near each other, to eat and drink and take their masks off. If those lines are inside, rather than out, the risks just go up. He expects to see cases of COVID-19 spiking around the country sometime about Nov. 15. He likened it to the risks of flying, in which being in a well-ventilated airplane with a mask on doesn’t seem to be a high-risk activity — but sitting around a crowded airport is.
Dowd had less concern about a voting-related spike but agreed that the waiting is the hardest part. It is also the part voters have the least control over. You can choose to wear a mask. You can choose to stand at a safe distance. You can go away and come back later when the line is shorter. But you can’t generally force your polling place to have people wait outside.
That’s why Cotti is happy the general election has had more options for how to vote than the primary elections offered. “More voting choices, a longer time when you can vote — that should reduce the number of people at the poll,” he said. “It should reduce the risk.”


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-02--Exit Polls Can Be Misleading — Especially This Year

Exit polls are usually a core component of election-night reporting — especially before real results come in .
They can provide an early sense of which candidate is leading and how certain key demographics voted .
But here at FiveThirtyEight , we won ’ t be covering exit polls much at all , at least not on election night .
That ’ s because pandemic-related changes to how the exit polls are being conducted will make them even less reliable this year .
What the deluge of final polls can tell us | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast Even under ideal conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People often use them to suss out the horse race while waiting for results to get insight into who ’ s winning , but exit polls aren ’ t intended to be used this way .
Really , what they ’ re designed to do is help explain how a candidate won after everything is said and done , breaking down a candidate ’ s support using various demographic variables like gender , race and education .
( For example , they made it really easy to tease out how the gender gap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with time . )
But exit polls should not be used as a way to gauge a candidate ’ s support in real time .
For starters , exit poll numbers can — and do — change over the course of election night , so you should be especially skeptical of the earliest exit-poll numbers , typically released around 5 p.m. Eastern .
By definition , this first wave of exit polls are incomplete : Polling places are still open , and who ’ s represented in the electorate could change .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Election Day tend to be older than the electorate at large , which can skew the numbers some .
As the night wears on , though , more interviews get added to the sample , and the exit polls become much more representative of voters as a whole .
In fact , exit polls are eventually weighted to match the final results , but that only happens after the election is over .
On election night itself , the numbers are reweighted as more data becomes available , but what you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of uncertainty — especially this year given that the pandemic has radically transformed the way we run elections .
The pandemic has undermined the one major advantage exit polls have over other kinds of polls : their ability to survey only actual voters , since exit polls catch respondents as they exit polling locations .
But in 2020 , far fewer people will be voting in person on Election Day than in previous years ; according to data from political scientist Michael McDonald , more than 93 million people nationwide have already cast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That means that interviewing voters as they leave polling places on Election Day won ’ t give a reliable estimate of how people will vote , especially as the people waiting until Nov. 3 are likely to skew more Republican than the electorate as a whole .
To account for this , Edison Research — the polling firm that produces the exit polls used by ABC News , CBS News , CNN and NBC News — has changed its methodology so that the “ exit polls ” you see on Nov. 3 will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls of Election Day voters and phone polls of mail voters .
In certain states , there will also be exit polls of early in-person voters , conducted at early-voting locations in essentially the same way as traditional exit polls ( just conducted earlier ) .
But exit polls will still be less reliable this year because the phone poll and the early exit poll are much tougher to get right than the traditional exit poll .
The phone poll essentially puts pollsters back in the uncomfortable territory of having to guess whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did .
( In a world in which trying to model likely-voter turnout is half the battle pollsters face , having that certainty in a traditional , non-pandemic exit poll is a big leg up . )
And while the early exit polls are better able to identify actual voters than pre-election polls , exit pollsters don ’ t have as much experience with early exit polling .
That means they ’ re making less informed decisions about how to weight their samples , which can affect the accuracy of their polls .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ know in advance what the proportion of in-person Election Day voters and absentee voters will be in 2020 .
So how heavily Edison decides to weight the traditional-exit-poll respondents versus the phone respondents and early voters will add to the exit polls ’ uncertainty this year .
What this boils down to is that , this year , there ’ s no reason to believe that exit polls will be any more accurate than traditional pre-election polls .
And so it ’ s hard to make a case for giving them more weight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve been looking at already .
We will be using exit polls in the weeks to come to understand how age , gender , race and education shaped voting behavior , once we know the outcome .
But if your main question is who will win the election , well , we ’ d never have recommended exit polls for that anyway .
This election night especially , it ’ s best just to wait for the final results — even if it takes a while .
What are the chances we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night ?

Exit polls are usually a core component of election-night reporting — especially before real results come in. They can provide an early sense of which candidate is leading and how certain key demographics voted. But here at FiveThirtyEight, we won’t be covering exit polls much at all, at least not on election night. That’s because pandemic-related changes to how the exit polls are being conducted will make them even less reliable this year.
What the deluge of final polls can tell us | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Even under ideal conditions, exit polls can be misleading. People often use them to suss out the horse race while waiting for results to get insight into who’s winning, but exit polls aren’t intended to be used this way. Really, what they’re designed to do is help explain how a candidate won after everything is said and done, breaking down a candidate’s support using various demographic variables like gender, race and education. (For example, they made it really easy to tease out how the gender gap between Democratic and Republican support has grown with time.)
[Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]
But exit polls should not be used as a way to gauge a candidate’s support in real time. For starters, exit poll numbers can — and do — change over the course of election night, so you should be especially skeptical of the earliest exit-poll numbers, typically released around 5 p.m. Eastern. By definition, this first wave of exit polls are incomplete: Polling places are still open, and who’s represented in the electorate could change. For example, people who vote early on Election Day tend to be older than the electorate at large, which can skew the numbers some.
As the night wears on, though, more interviews get added to the sample, and the exit polls become much more representative of voters as a whole. In fact, exit polls are eventually weighted to match the final results, but that only happens after the election is over. On election night itself, the numbers are reweighted as more data becomes available, but what you’re seeing is still subject to a lot of uncertainty — especially this year given that the pandemic has radically transformed the way we run elections.
The pandemic has undermined the one major advantage exit polls have over other kinds of polls: their ability to survey only actual voters, since exit polls catch respondents as they exit polling locations. But in 2020, far fewer people will be voting in person on Election Day than in previous years; according to data from political scientist Michael McDonald, more than 93 million people nationwide have already cast an absentee or in-person early vote. That means that interviewing voters as they leave polling places on Election Day won’t give a reliable estimate of how people will vote, especially as the people waiting until Nov. 3 are likely to skew more Republican than the electorate as a whole.
To account for this, Edison Research — the polling firm that produces the exit polls used by ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News — has changed its methodology so that the “exit polls” you see on Nov. 3 will actually be a combination of traditional exit polls of Election Day voters and phone polls of mail voters. In certain states, there will also be exit polls of early in-person voters, conducted at early-voting locations in essentially the same way as traditional exit polls (just conducted earlier).
But exit polls will still be less reliable this year because the phone poll and the early exit poll are much tougher to get right than the traditional exit poll.
The phone poll essentially puts pollsters back in the uncomfortable territory of having to guess whether respondents who claim to have voted actually did. (In a world in which trying to model likely-voter turnout is half the battle pollsters face, having that certainty in a traditional, non-pandemic exit poll is a big leg up.)
And while the early exit polls are better able to identify actual voters than pre-election polls, exit pollsters don’t have as much experience with early exit polling. That means they’re making less informed decisions about how to weight their samples, which can affect the accuracy of their polls. It’s just really hard to know in advance what the proportion of in-person Election Day voters and absentee voters will be in 2020. So how heavily Edison decides to weight the traditional-exit-poll respondents versus the phone respondents and early voters will add to the exit polls’ uncertainty this year.
What this boils down to is that, this year, there’s no reason to believe that exit polls will be any more accurate than traditional pre-election polls. And so it’s hard to make a case for giving them more weight than the many pre-election polls we’ve been looking at already. We will be using exit polls in the weeks to come to understand how age, gender, race and education shaped voting behavior, once we know the outcome. But if your main question is who will win the election, well, we’d never have recommended exit polls for that anyway. This election night especially, it’s best just to wait for the final results — even if it takes a while.
What are the chances we’ll know the next president on election night?


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-02--I’m Here To Remind You That Trump Can Still Win

It ’ s tempting to write this story in the form of narrative fiction : “ On a frigid early December morning in Washington , the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that disputed mail ballots in Pennsylvania— ” You know , that kind of thing .
But given the stakes in this election , I think it ’ s important to be prosaic and sober-minded instead .
So let ’ s state a few basic facts : The reasons that President Trump ’ s chances in our forecast are about 10 percent and not zero : • As in 2016 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ College .
Projected margins in the tipping-point states are considerably tighter than the margins in the national popular vote .
• More specifically , Joe Biden ’ s lead in Pennsylvania — the most likely tipping-point state , according to our forecast — is solid but not spectacular : about 5 points in our polling average .
• Without Pennsylvania , Biden does have some paths to victory , but there ’ s no one alternative state he can feel especially secure about .
• While a lot of theories about why Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ shy ” Trump voters ) are probably wrong , systematic polling errors do occur , and it ’ s hard to predict them ahead of time or to anticipate the reasons in advance .
• There is some chance that Trump could “ win ” illegitimately .
To a large extent , these scenarios are beyond the scope of our forecast .
• There ’ s also some chance of a recount ( about 4 percent ) or an Electoral College tie ( around 0.5 percent ) , according to our forecast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ short philosophical note .
I hate it when people use phrases — to be fair , we often use phrases like these ourselves !
— such as “ Nate Silver is giving Biden a 90 percent chance ” or “ FiveThirtyEight still gives Trump a 10 percent chance.
” We aren ’ t giving anybody anything .
Instead , as former FiveThirtyEight politics host Jody Avirgan puts it , what we ’ re doing is “ mapping uncertainty.
” In other words , if Biden leads by about 9 points in national polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ points in Pennsylvania , 2 points in Florida , etc.
, how does that translate into a probability of victory ?
That ’ s what our model is trying to figure out .
What the deluge of final polls can tell us | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast And indeed — although nobody needs any reminders of this after 2016 — Trump can win .
All the election models are bullish on Biden , but they are united in that a Trump win is still plausible despite his seemingly steep deficit in polls .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others ’ think Trump can still win is the Electoral College .
Trump has only a 3 percent chance of winning the popular vote in our model .
Other models put his chances at less than 1 percent .
It ’ s very likely that Democrats will win the popular vote for the seventh time in the last eight elections .
But while a roughly 8-point deficit in the popular vote is hard to overcome — as of this writing , at 7:30 p.m .
ET on Sunday , our model forecasts Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percentage points — a 5-point gap is a lot easier to close .
And that ’ s our current forecast in Pennsylvania : Biden wins by 4.7 points .
Note the roughly 3-point gap between the popular vote and the outcome in Pennsylvania , the most likely tipping-point state .
That ’ s similar to 2016 , when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by around 2 points but lost the tipping-point state , Wisconsin , by just a little under 1 point .
Or if you want a more sophisticated version of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often Biden is projected to win the Electoral College from various potential margins in the popular vote : If Biden wins the popular vote by 2 to 3 percentage points , the Electoral College is roughly a toss-up .
But if Biden wins the popular vote by less than 2 points , Trump is a fairly heavy favorite to win the election .
Even popular vote margins of up to 6 points are not entirely safe for Biden if his votes are distributed in exactly the wrong way .
So you can see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the popular vote shouldn ’ t make Biden feel that secure ; despite being a landslide margin , it ’ s also only a few points removed from the inflection point where the Electoral College starts to become competitive .
Biden ’ s position would simply be a whole lot safer if one of two things were true : If either the polling in Pennsylvania were like that in Wisconsin and Michigan , where he has a larger lead … or if another state such as Florida were also polling more like Pennsylvania @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But neither of those things are true .
The gap between Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan has actually grown in the waning days of the election .
And no state has emerged out of the pack of Arizona , North Carolina , Florida and Georgia to be Biden ’ s clear Plan B ( Biden is forecasted to win each state by between 1 and 3 points ) .
Arizona is probably Biden ’ s best bet in this group , but winning it would also require him to win either Nebraska @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s 2nd Congressional District to break a 269-269 Electoral College tie ; he ’ s favored in both districts but they aren ’ t sure things .
Moreover , because polling errors are somewhat correlated from state to state , if Biden loses Pennsylvania , he would no longer be a favorite in states such as Florida and Georgia — where he ’ s narrowly ahead now — because it would be a sign that Trump had outperformed his polls again .
Of course , this only goes so far : In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Midwest , but there wasn ’ t much of a polling error in Arizona .
Still , losing Pennsylvania would take Biden from favorite to underdog .
You ’ ll notice that I ’ ve mostly been focusing here on the whats and not the hows or the whys .
In other words , I ’ m describing what combinations of states could plausibly produce winning maps for Trump given the possibility of a polling error , but not describing why such a polling error might occur .
To some extent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If pollsters knew what the source of a polling error might be , they ’ d presumably try to fix it .
Many pollsters are weighting by education now , something many didn ’ t do in 2016 , and that was a big source of error that year .
Another big source of error in 2016 was the large number of undecided voters , who broke toward Trump in the Midwest .
To some extent , that one isn ’ t on the pollsters , since polls aren ’ t really supposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who say they ’ re undecided .
Nonetheless , that ’ s much less of an issue this year , because there are far fewer undecided voters .
There are , however , some new potential sources of error this year .
One of them is the huge growth in people who are voting early or by mail .
It ’ s not only that more people are using these methods , but also that — unlike in the past , when they were relatively bipartisan — Democrats are far more likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans are much more likely to vote in person on Election Day , conversely , while early in-person voting falls somewhere in between .
One issue for pollsters here could be the rate of ballot spoilage .
Because of processing delays , some mail ballots won ’ t be received by states ’ deadlines .
And voters might not complete the instructions correctly , as we ’ ve already seen in Pennsylvania with the issue of “ naked ballots ” , that is , voters forgetting to enclose their ballot in its extra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for instance , that in a certain state , the vote is divided evenly at 50-50 in a poll between Biden and Trump .
But two-thirds of Biden voters are voting by mail , whereas two-thirds of Trump ’ s supporters are voting in person , and the rate of mail ballot spoilage is 3 percent .
That would be enough for Trump to win 50.8 to 49.2 , meaning that you had a polling error of 1 or 2 points .
However , there are several mitigating factors here .
First , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side for mail ballot rejection rates ; other estimates hover at closer to 1 percent , although the number could be higher this year with so many first-time mail voters .
Second , some ballots are also spoiled during in-person voting because of errors with voting technologies ( think about hanging chads , for instance ) .
Third , there is considerable evidence that Democrats mailed in their ballots early , which could put them less at risk of spoilage .
According to the United States Elections Project , the party registration on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by 24 percentage points .
But for mail ballots requested but not yet received — those that might trickle in late — the partisan gap is just 11 points in Democrats ’ favor .
Polls find that Democrats are also more likely to drop off their ballots at drop boxes , which reduces the risk a ballot is rejected .
What are the chances we ’ ll know the next president on election night ?
In addition , there ’ s something to be said for the idea that it ’ s worthwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone has already voted , they ’ re 100 percent likely to vote ( and 98 or 99 percent likely to have their vote counted , depending on the rate of ballot spoilage ) .
What about someone who says they ’ re planning to vote on Election Day but hasn ’ t done so yet ?
They ’ re certainly not 100 percent likely to vote .
Something could come up on Election Day — they get stuck late at work , they blow out a tire , they feel sick , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think their candidate is losing .
Indeed , even some of the people that pollsters deem to be the most likely voters don ’ t wind up voting .
If 2 percent of mail voters have their votes rejected , but 5 percent of “ likely ” Election Day voters don ’ t wind up voting , then polls could underestimate Democrats .
Wait , wasn ’ t this supposed to be a post about how Trump could beat his polls ?
Well , the point is just that mail voting creates additional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s easy to imagine how that could help out Trump or Biden .
Another potential source of anxiety for pollsters is the Hispanic vote .
Polls show Trump having made significant gains relative to 2016 with Hispanic voters — and to a lesser extent with Black voters , especially Black men .
This is not enough to offset gains that Biden has made with white voters , however , including white voters both with and without a college degree .
But are these changes real ?
Both white voters and Hispanic voters without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to reach on the phone .
It can also be hard to get a representative sample — if , for example , you don ’ t get enough Cuban American voters in Florida , or if you aren ’ t reaching enough Hispanic Americans who primarily speak Spanish .
Hispanic voters and white voters without a college degree can also work somewhat at cross-purposes to one another when you ’ re weighting a poll , because while white voters without a college degree are more Republican than whites with a college degree , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Overall , I don ’ t particularly think there is any reason to distrust the polls here .
If anything , polls have tended to underestimate Democratic support in recent elections in states such as Nevada that had a large number of Hispanic voters .
Still , suppose that Trump ’ s growth in Hispanic support is real , while Biden ’ s gains among white voters without a college degree are not , for whatever reason .
That could lead to a rough night for Biden : The lack of white non-college @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mediocre performance among Hispanics could keep Arizona and Florida in Trump ’ s column .
Maybe Biden would eke out a win in Georgia or North Carolina , but that ’ s a much narrower path then he ’ d planned on .
And what about those “ shy ” Trump voters ?
There ’ s no particularly good evidence that Trump voters are likely to conceal their intentions to pollsters .
Nor — if we want to expand the sample size a bit — is there any reason to believe that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their polls in other countries .
Conversely , there is quite a bit of evidence that most of Biden ’ s polling gains relative to Clinton come from vote-switchers , rather than from an expectation of higher Democratic turnout .
If a respondent tells a pollster that they voted for Trump in 2016 but will be voting for Biden this year — and there aren ’ t a lot of those people , but a few make a big difference — it ’ s hard to consider them a “ shy ” Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t completely crazy .
Social desirability bias — not wanting to provide an answer you think the person on the other side of the line won ’ t like — has been a problem in some other polling contexts .
The point is that even if you mostly aren ’ t worried about “ shy ” Trump voters — or think it ’ s equally likely that there are “ shy ” Biden voters !
— that ’ s different than being 100 percent sure that the theory isn ’ t true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to account for how 10 percent chances happen , we have to accept that sometimes it ’ s because our assumptions are wrong .
Finally , there are the factors our model doesn ’ t try to account for , such as the many , many things we ’ re tracking on our election administration blog : attempts to disqualify various groups of ballots , voter intimidation , polling-place irregularities , and so forth .
Plus , there ’ s a good chance that Trump will try to declare a premature victory .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort out the heat from the light here .
But it may sometimes be worth putting magnitudes on things .
Problems at one polling place are not going to have nearly as much of an impact as a Republican attempt to throw out 120,000 ballots cast in Texas ’ s Harris County , for instance .
Yet , as much of an affront to democracy as that would be , even that would still only amount to around 1 percent of the vote in one state .
Let ’ s up the ante @ @ @ @ @ @ @ send alternative slates of electors to the Electoral College ?
Now , that could have a really big impact , although it ’ s not clear how likely it is .
It ’ s also worth recognizing that there is another side to this , too .
There is — long overdue in my view — far more attention paid to voter suppression and voter disenfranchisement than there used to be .
( We ’ ve certainly made a big effort to put far more resources into those stories at FiveThirtyEight . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to vote than it has been in the past ?
It depends on the state , but in most states , the answer is no .
According to the Brennan Center ’ s annual reports , recent years have seen more efforts to expand voting rights than to restrict them .
And the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an expansion of voting options , some temporary and some permanent .
If it ’ s still too hard to vote for disadvantaged groups — but it ’ s easier than it used to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ increase in turnout for Democrats relative to past elections .
The FiveThirtyEight model does try to account for changes to voting laws in each state ; that ’ s part of the reason why it ’ s relatively bearish on Biden in Texas , for example , which has some of the strictest laws in the country .
So when I say that there are certain things outside the scope of the model — well , the truth is a little bit messier than that .
One reason that we make relatively conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distributions , is to account for “ unknown unknowns.
” Here ’ s what it seems safe to say , though .
In an election that is very close , a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court is likely to side with Trump .
Our model shows a 4 percent chance of an election that winds up with one or more decisive states within 0.5 percentage points , close enough to trigger a recount .
If you want to round up Trump ’ s odds slightly by assuming he wins the lion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of cases , plus most of the 0.5 percent of the time that the election ends up in an Electoral College tie , I wouldn ’ t strenuously object to that .
Mostly , though , I ’ d just be worried about the meltdown that could occur if a recount or a tie comes up .
The odds are against it , but the stakes are awfully high .
Will millions of dollars on TV ads make a difference in the race for the presidency ?

It’s tempting to write this story in the form of narrative fiction: “On a frigid early December morning in Washington, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that disputed mail ballots in Pennsylvania—” You know, that kind of thing. But given the stakes in this election, I think it’s important to be prosaic and sober-minded instead.
[Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]
So let’s state a few basic facts: The reasons that President Trump’s chances in our forecast are about 10 percent and not zero:
As in 2016, Trump could potentially benefit from the Electoral College. Projected margins in the tipping-point states are considerably tighter than the margins in the national popular vote.
More specifically, Joe Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania — the most likely tipping-point state, according to our forecast — is solid but not spectacular: about 5 points in our polling average.
Without Pennsylvania, Biden does have some paths to victory, but there’s no one alternative state he can feel especially secure about.
While a lot of theories about why Trump can win (e.g., those about “shy” Trump voters) are probably wrong, systematic polling errors do occur, and it’s hard to predict them ahead of time or to anticipate the reasons in advance.
There is some chance that Trump could “win” illegitimately. To a large extent, these scenarios are beyond the scope of our forecast.
There’s also some chance of a recount (about 4 percent) or an Electoral College tie (around 0.5 percent), according to our forecast.
Before we proceed further, a short philosophical note. I hate it when people use phrases — to be fair, we often use phrases like these ourselves! — such as “Nate Silver is giving Biden a 90 percent chance” or “FiveThirtyEight still gives Trump a 10 percent chance.” We aren’t giving anybody anything. Instead, as former FiveThirtyEight politics host Jody Avirgan puts it, what we’re doing is “mapping uncertainty.” In other words, if Biden leads by about 9 points in national polls, 8 points in Wisconsin, 5 points in Pennsylvania, 2 points in Florida, etc., how does that translate into a probability of victory? That’s what our model is trying to figure out.
What the deluge of final polls can tell us | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
And indeed — although nobody needs any reminders of this after 2016 — Trump can win. All the election models are bullish on Biden, but they are united in that a Trump win is still plausible despite his seemingly steep deficit in polls.
A huge part of why our model and others’ think Trump can still win is the Electoral College. Trump has only a 3 percent chance of winning the popular vote in our model. Other models put his chances at less than 1 percent. It’s very likely that Democrats will win the popular vote for the seventh time in the last eight elections.
But while a roughly 8-point deficit in the popular vote is hard to overcome — as of this writing, at 7:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, our model forecasts Biden to win the popular vote by 7.8 percentage points — a 5-point gap is a lot easier to close. And that’s our current forecast in Pennsylvania: Biden wins by 4.7 points. Note the roughly 3-point gap between the popular vote and the outcome in Pennsylvania, the most likely tipping-point state. That’s similar to 2016, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by around 2 points but lost the tipping-point state, Wisconsin, by just a little under 1 point.
Or if you want a more sophisticated version of this, we can look at how often Biden is projected to win the Electoral College from various potential margins in the popular vote:
Biden needs a popular vote cushion Probability of winning the Electoral College based on various popular vote outcomes, according to the FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast as of Nov. 1 Popular vote margin Trump Biden 269-269 tie Biden +6 to +7 <1% >99% <1% Biden +5 to +6 3 97 <1 Biden +4 to +5 10 89 2 Biden +3 to +4 30 67 3 Biden +2 to +3 57 41 2 Biden +1 to +2 75 23 2 TIE to Biden +1 89 10 1 TIE to Trump +1 98 2 <1 Trump +1 to +2 >99 <1 <1
If Biden wins the popular vote by 2 to 3 percentage points, the Electoral College is roughly a toss-up. But if Biden wins the popular vote by less than 2 points, Trump is a fairly heavy favorite to win the election. Even popular vote margins of up to 6 points are not entirely safe for Biden if his votes are distributed in exactly the wrong way. So you can see why an 8- or 9-point lead in the popular vote shouldn’t make Biden feel that secure; despite being a landslide margin, it’s also only a few points removed from the inflection point where the Electoral College starts to become competitive.
Biden’s position would simply be a whole lot safer if one of two things were true: If either the polling in Pennsylvania were like that in Wisconsin and Michigan, where he has a larger lead … or if another state such as Florida were also polling more like Pennsylvania to give Biden a clear Plan B. But neither of those things are true. The gap between Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan has actually grown in the waning days of the election. And no state has emerged out of the pack of Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia to be Biden’s clear Plan B (Biden is forecasted to win each state by between 1 and 3 points). Arizona is probably Biden’s best bet in this group, but winning it would also require him to win either Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District or Maine’s 2nd Congressional District to break a 269-269 Electoral College tie; he’s favored in both districts but they aren’t sure things.
Biden’s lead in Pennsylvania is narrow Forecasted vote share margins for Biden, according to the FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast as of Nov. 1 State margin New Mexico +12.8 Virginia +12.1 Colorado +12.0 Maine +11.9 New Hampshire +10.4 Minnesota +9.0 Michigan +8.2 Wisconsin +7.7 Nevada +5.9 Pennsylvania +4.8 Arizona +2.9 Florida +2.1 North Carolina +1.9 Georgia +0.8 Ohio -0.0 Texas -1.8 Iowa -1.9
Moreover, because polling errors are somewhat correlated from state to state, if Biden loses Pennsylvania, he would no longer be a favorite in states such as Florida and Georgia — where he’s narrowly ahead now — because it would be a sign that Trump had outperformed his polls again. Of course, this only goes so far: In 2016, Trump massively outperformed his polls in the Midwest, but there wasn’t much of a polling error in Arizona. Still, losing Pennsylvania would take Biden from favorite to underdog.
Pennsylvania will tell us a lot Biden’s chances of winning if he wins or loses Pennsylvania, according to the FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast as of Nov. 1 Biden’s chances of winning State If he wins Pennsylvania… If he loses Pennsylvania… Minnesota >99% 76% Michigan >99 73 Wisconsin 98 66 Maine 95 63 Nevada 92 57 New Hampshire 95 53 Arizona 76 38 Florida 74 27 Georgia 63 23 North Carolina 74 18 Texas 41 10 Iowa 43 6 Ohio 58 4
You’ll notice that I’ve mostly been focusing here on the whats and not the hows or the whys. In other words, I’m describing what combinations of states could plausibly produce winning maps for Trump given the possibility of a polling error, but not describing why such a polling error might occur.
To some extent, that’s on purpose. If pollsters knew what the source of a polling error might be, they’d presumably try to fix it. Many pollsters are weighting by education now, something many didn’t do in 2016, and that was a big source of error that year. Another big source of error in 2016 was the large number of undecided voters, who broke toward Trump in the Midwest. To some extent, that one isn’t on the pollsters, since polls aren’t really supposed to try to predict the vote of people who say they’re undecided. Nonetheless, that’s much less of an issue this year, because there are far fewer undecided voters.
There are, however, some new potential sources of error this year. One of them is the huge growth in people who are voting early or by mail. It’s not only that more people are using these methods, but also that — unlike in the past, when they were relatively bipartisan — Democrats are far more likely to vote by mail than Republicans. Republicans are much more likely to vote in person on Election Day, conversely, while early in-person voting falls somewhere in between.
One issue for pollsters here could be the rate of ballot spoilage. Because of processing delays, some mail ballots won’t be received by states’ deadlines. And voters might not complete the instructions correctly, as we’ve already seen in Pennsylvania with the issue of “naked ballots”, that is, voters forgetting to enclose their ballot in its extra, secrecy envelope.
So imagine, for instance, that in a certain state, the vote is divided evenly at 50-50 in a poll between Biden and Trump. But two-thirds of Biden voters are voting by mail, whereas two-thirds of Trump’s supporters are voting in person, and the rate of mail ballot spoilage is 3 percent. That would be enough for Trump to win 50.8 to 49.2, meaning that you had a polling error of 1 or 2 points.
However, there are several mitigating factors here. First, 3 percent is probably on the high side for mail ballot rejection rates; other estimates hover at closer to 1 percent, although the number could be higher this year with so many first-time mail voters. Second, some ballots are also spoiled during in-person voting because of errors with voting technologies (think about hanging chads, for instance). Third, there is considerable evidence that Democrats mailed in their ballots early, which could put them less at risk of spoilage. According to the United States Elections Project, the party registration on mail ballots received so far favors Democrats by 24 percentage points. But for mail ballots requested but not yet received — those that might trickle in late — the partisan gap is just 11 points in Democrats’ favor. Polls find that Democrats are also more likely to drop off their ballots at drop boxes, which reduces the risk a ballot is rejected.
What are the chances we’ll know the next president on election night?
In addition, there’s something to be said for the idea that it’s worthwhile to lock in a vote. If someone has already voted, they’re 100 percent likely to vote (and 98 or 99 percent likely to have their vote counted, depending on the rate of ballot spoilage). What about someone who says they’re planning to vote on Election Day but hasn’t done so yet? They’re certainly not 100 percent likely to vote. Something could come up on Election Day — they get stuck late at work, they blow out a tire, they feel sick, they don’t bother because they think their candidate is losing. Indeed, even some of the people that pollsters deem to be the most likely voters don’t wind up voting. If 2 percent of mail voters have their votes rejected, but 5 percent of “likely” Election Day voters don’t wind up voting, then polls could underestimate Democrats.
Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a post about how Trump could beat his polls? Well, the point is just that mail voting creates additional uncertainty this year, and it’s easy to imagine how that could help out Trump or Biden.
Another potential source of anxiety for pollsters is the Hispanic vote. Polls show Trump having made significant gains relative to 2016 with Hispanic voters — and to a lesser extent with Black voters, especially Black men. This is not enough to offset gains that Biden has made with white voters, however, including white voters both with and without a college degree.
But are these changes real? Both white voters and Hispanic voters without a college degree can be hard groups to reach on the phone. It can also be hard to get a representative sample — if, for example, you don’t get enough Cuban American voters in Florida, or if you aren’t reaching enough Hispanic Americans who primarily speak Spanish. Hispanic voters and white voters without a college degree can also work somewhat at cross-purposes to one another when you’re weighting a poll, because while white voters without a college degree are more Republican than whites with a college degree, the opposite is true for Hispanics.
Overall, I don’t particularly think there is any reason to distrust the polls here. If anything, polls have tended to underestimate Democratic support in recent elections in states such as Nevada that had a large number of Hispanic voters. Still, suppose that Trump’s growth in Hispanic support is real, while Biden’s gains among white voters without a college degree are not, for whatever reason. That could lead to a rough night for Biden: The lack of white non-college support could cost him Pennsylvania, while a mediocre performance among Hispanics could keep Arizona and Florida in Trump’s column. Maybe Biden would eke out a win in Georgia or North Carolina, but that’s a much narrower path then he’d planned on.
And what about those “shy” Trump voters? There’s no particularly good evidence that Trump voters are likely to conceal their intentions to pollsters. Nor — if we want to expand the sample size a bit — is there any reason to believe that nationalist or right-wing parties tend to beat their polls in other countries.
Conversely, there is quite a bit of evidence that most of Biden’s polling gains relative to Clinton come from vote-switchers, rather than from an expectation of higher Democratic turnout. If a respondent tells a pollster that they voted for Trump in 2016 but will be voting for Biden this year — and there aren’t a lot of those people, but a few make a big difference — it’s hard to consider them a “shy” Trump voter.
Still, the theory isn’t completely crazy. Social desirability bias — not wanting to provide an answer you think the person on the other side of the line won’t like — has been a problem in some other polling contexts. The point is that even if you mostly aren’t worried about “shy” Trump voters — or think it’s equally likely that there are “shy” Biden voters! — that’s different than being 100 percent sure that the theory isn’t true. And if we’re trying to account for how 10 percent chances happen, we have to accept that sometimes it’s because our assumptions are wrong.
Finally, there are the factors our model doesn’t try to account for, such as the many, many things we’re tracking on our election administration blog: attempts to disqualify various groups of ballots, voter intimidation, polling-place irregularities, and so forth. Plus, there’s a good chance that Trump will try to declare a premature victory.
It isn’t terribly easy to sort out the heat from the light here. But it may sometimes be worth putting magnitudes on things. Problems at one polling place are not going to have nearly as much of an impact as a Republican attempt to throw out 120,000 ballots cast in Texas’s Harris County, for instance. Yet, as much of an affront to democracy as that would be, even that would still only amount to around 1 percent of the vote in one state. Let’s up the ante: What about Republican legislatures trying to send alternative slates of electors to the Electoral College? Now, that could have a really big impact, although it’s not clear how likely it is.
It’s also worth recognizing that there is another side to this, too. There is — long overdue in my view — far more attention paid to voter suppression and voter disenfranchisement than there used to be. (We’ve certainly made a big effort to put far more resources into those stories at FiveThirtyEight.)
But … is it actually harder now to vote than it has been in the past? It depends on the state, but in most states, the answer is no. According to the Brennan Center’s annual reports, recent years have seen more efforts to expand voting rights than to restrict them. And the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an expansion of voting options, some temporary and some permanent. If it’s still too hard to vote for disadvantaged groups — but it’s easier than it used to be — that could lead to a net increase in turnout for Democrats relative to past elections. The FiveThirtyEight model does try to account for changes to voting laws in each state; that’s part of the reason why it’s relatively bearish on Biden in Texas, for example, which has some of the strictest laws in the country.
So when I say that there are certain things outside the scope of the model — well, the truth is a little bit messier than that. One reason that we make relatively conservative assumptions, such as by using fat-tailed distributions, is to account for “unknown unknowns.”
Here’s what it seems safe to say, though. In an election that is very close, a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court is likely to side with Trump. Our model shows a 4 percent chance of an election that winds up with one or more decisive states within 0.5 percentage points, close enough to trigger a recount. If you want to round up Trump’s odds slightly by assuming he wins the lion’s share of those 4 percent of cases, plus most of the 0.5 percent of the time that the election ends up in an Electoral College tie, I wouldn’t strenuously object to that. Mostly, though, I’d just be worried about the meltdown that could occur if a recount or a tie comes up. The odds are against it, but the stakes are awfully high.
Will millions of dollars on TV ads make a difference in the race for the presidency?