fivethirthyeight--2020-11-20--Why Even A Small Thanksgiving Is Dangerous

We all thought we knew what kinds of places to avoid : the ballparks , the Sunday services , the packed train cars .
If we didn ’ t want to catch COVID-19 , we should stay away from crowds .
That was the mantra .
So we skipped the summer street parties and we did virtual church .
We had a nice little evening at home , ordering takeout and maybe inviting our closest friends and family over .
But now , with COVID-19 rates on the rise basically everywhere in the U.S. , those small gatherings are being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts say they don ’ t want us to have Thanksgiving celebrations with people outside our household bubbles .
But experts are always telling us not to do the fun stuff that nourishes our souls — like eating huge meals or festively increasing our drinking — while the darkness of winter encroaches from every side .
Having 10 people around a Thanksgiving table can ’ t be that much of a risk to society , right ?
Surely you can ’ t have a superspreader event without , at least , enough people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make of Pfizer ’ s big vaccine announcement l FiveThirtyEight Unfortunately , the last month has changed the sacrifices we must make to try to avoid the coronavirus .
Across the nation , especially in the Midwest , cases have skyrocketed — with some states seeing more cases in the last six or so weeks than they ’ d previously had all year up to that point .
Small gatherings have gotten more risky .
And Thanksgiving now represents a very serious threat .
[ Related : What We Know About ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because no matter how much we try to pretend otherwise , COVID-19 is a disease you get from being around other people .
Technically , the size of the group doesn ’ t matter , said Georges Benjamin , executive director of the American Public Health Association .
What matters is the likelihood that one of those people comes to the table infected .
Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner with 10 people .
Unless all those people have been in strict quarantine for a couple of weeks , you have no way of knowing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a pre-dinner test isn ’ t a great way to ensure you ’ re not contagious , experts told me , because the results are only a snapshot of a moment in time .
“ You could test negative today and be infectious tonight , with no symptoms until tomorrow morning , ” said Donald Milton , a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Maryland .
How likely is it one of those 10 people is infected ?
That depends on where you are .
Some states are estimated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent chance of having someone with COVID-19 attend a 10-person gathering .
But even if there ’ s a far lower chance at your individual dinner , the risk to the community of a bunch of dinners quickly becomes clear .
That is the thing that really changed in recent months .
It was a slow process , said Preeti Malani , chief health officer at the University of Michigan .
Over the summer , many stores , restaurants and attractions opened back up , which meant people could get together easily outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems those gatherings didn ’ t stop , they just moved indoors .
“ Things started increasing , and my colleague calls it the rising water , ” Malani said .
The more people who are infected in a community , the higher the likelihood that the everyday workings of a social scene will put one of them at someone ’ s dinner table , or on the porch at a crowded party .
The more frequently that happens , the higher the waterline creeps .
You can see it in action at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Assessment Planning Tool , a website that calculates the likelihood that a gathering of a given size includes at least one person infected with COVID-19 .
Hawaii , for example , has largely avoided the worst of this current surge .
Even if you assume there are 10 times as many cases circulating in the state as have been formally diagnosed — something the folks behind the Georgia Tech tool recommend because of inconsistent testing and the ability of people to spread the disease without showing symptoms themselves — the risk in Hawaii @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a 10-person gathering .
North Dakota , on the other hand , is one of the states that ’ s been hardest-hit by this current wave of outbreaks , with 1 in every 1,000 residents now dead from the virus .
There , the risk of encountering a COVID-19-infected person at your small , intimate gathering was about 82 percent , factoring in the same 10x multiplier .
“ In February or March , when we had very few cases , there was less of a risk , ” said Aditya Shah , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mayo Clinic in Minnesota .
“ Now it ’ s so widespread … that ’ s different.
” The upcoming holiday season is also different , both in the literal sense and in the way Midwesterners like me use it : as a metaphor for “ bad.
” Not all Americans can get a COVID-19 test when they want | FiveThirtyEight Thanksgiving does not exist in isolation .
It ’ s not a thing one family is doing alone .
And it will be followed , over the next month and a half @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including Black Friday , Hanukkah , Christmas and New Year ’ s .
Those two factors together explode a personal risk into a community crisis .
“ I think about social gatherings and their impact on a community with an analogy to fire , ” said Pinar Keskinocak , director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems at Georgia Tech .
“ If you build a fire in a BBQ or a small brick fire pit , it is contained .
That is how we often think about small gatherings .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ground in a pine forest which has not seen rain in months , and many other small groups do the same , you can imagine what happens very quickly.
” [ Related : What A Summer Of COVID-19 Taught Scientists About Indoor vs .
Outdoor Transmission ] Risks are multiplied by dozens of dinner parties across town , and then grow over time as those dinner party attendees interact with other people in stores , waiting rooms and other small gatherings in the following weeks .
This is how you get exponential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts are warning you against gathering a few loved ones at home now , even though throughout the summer all you heard about was the dangers of parties and rallies and protests and festivals , attended by dozens or hundreds or thousands of people instead of just the handful who might come to your dinner table .
When there were fewer cases , it took a big gathering to make it likely that someone there was infected .
But the water rose and now it ’ s threatening to drown us .
Again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t new , Benjamin said .
The same thing basically happens with the flu every year , he told me .
Kids get exposed at school and spend the time between Thanksgiving and New Year ’ s passing it around from one family gathering to another .
As the holidays end , flu season starts to peak .
But COVID-19 is not the flu .
It ’ s far more deadly .
It ’ s far more debilitating in the long term .
It ’ s far easier to spread even if you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have symptoms yet .
The virus is common enough now in a lot of places that you can ’ t really be confident that even a small event doesn ’ t include someone contagious .
And holding many small events on the same day creates an opportunity for COVID-19 to spread exponentially , and disperse from Thanksgiving tables back into the community of each person who sat at them .
Which just makes the risk of the next holiday higher .
It might seem unfair to ask people not to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ missed , not to let a college student travel home for Thanksgiving dinner , not to enjoy this small pleasure .
It might seem inconsistent to have focused on the dangers of large gatherings all year and begin warning about small gatherings just as they feel the most valuable .
But this is a new phase of the pandemic .
There ’ s more virus , in more places , and avoiding it has become harder .
Even knowing where you caught it is harder .
“ The prevalence is so high in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
“ You have to see and treat everybody as infected .
”

We all thought we knew what kinds of places to avoid: the ballparks, the Sunday services, the packed train cars. If we didn’t want to catch COVID-19, we should stay away from crowds. That was the mantra. So we skipped the summer street parties and we did virtual church. We had a nice little evening at home, ordering takeout and maybe inviting our closest friends and family over.
But now, with COVID-19 rates on the rise basically everywhere in the U.S., those small gatherings are being blamed for spreading the virus, and experts say they don’t want us to have Thanksgiving celebrations with people outside our household bubbles. But experts are always telling us not to do the fun stuff that nourishes our souls — like eating huge meals or festively increasing our drinking — while the darkness of winter encroaches from every side. Having 10 people around a Thanksgiving table can’t be that much of a risk to society, right? Surely you can’t have a superspreader event without, at least, enough people to field a football team?
What to make of Pfizer’s big vaccine announcement l FiveThirtyEight
Unfortunately, the last month has changed the sacrifices we must make to try to avoid the coronavirus. Across the nation, especially in the Midwest, cases have skyrocketed — with some states seeing more cases in the last six or so weeks than they’d previously had all year up to that point. Small gatherings have gotten more risky. And Thanksgiving now represents a very serious threat.
[Related: What We Know About ‘Long COVID’]
That’s because no matter how much we try to pretend otherwise, COVID-19 is a disease you get from being around other people. Technically, the size of the group doesn’t matter, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. What matters is the likelihood that one of those people comes to the table infected.
Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner with 10 people. Unless all those people have been in strict quarantine for a couple of weeks, you have no way of knowing they’re COVID-19-free. Even getting a pre-dinner test isn’t a great way to ensure you’re not contagious, experts told me, because the results are only a snapshot of a moment in time. “You could test negative today and be infectious tonight, with no symptoms until tomorrow morning,” said Donald Milton, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Maryland.
How likely is it one of those 10 people is infected? That depends on where you are. Some states are estimated to have as much as an 80 percent chance of having someone with COVID-19 attend a 10-person gathering. But even if there’s a far lower chance at your individual dinner, the risk to the community of a bunch of dinners quickly becomes clear.
That is the thing that really changed in recent months. It was a slow process, said Preeti Malani, chief health officer at the University of Michigan. Over the summer, many stores, restaurants and attractions opened back up, which meant people could get together easily outside. As the weather cooled, it seems those gatherings didn’t stop, they just moved indoors. “Things started increasing, and my colleague calls it the rising water,” Malani said.
The more people who are infected in a community, the higher the likelihood that the everyday workings of a social scene will put one of them at someone’s dinner table, or on the porch at a crowded party. The more frequently that happens, the higher the waterline creeps. You can see it in action at Georgia Tech’s COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, a website that calculates the likelihood that a gathering of a given size includes at least one person infected with COVID-19.
Hawaii, for example, has largely avoided the worst of this current surge. Even if you assume there are 10 times as many cases circulating in the state as have been formally diagnosed — something the folks behind the Georgia Tech tool recommend because of inconsistent testing and the ability of people to spread the disease without showing symptoms themselves — the risk in Hawaii is still only about 6 percent at a 10-person gathering. North Dakota, on the other hand, is one of the states that’s been hardest-hit by this current wave of outbreaks, with 1 in every 1,000 residents now dead from the virus. There, the risk of encountering a COVID-19-infected person at your small, intimate gathering was about 82 percent, factoring in the same 10x multiplier. “In February or March, when we had very few cases, there was less of a risk,” said Aditya Shah, a consultant in infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. “Now it’s so widespread … that’s different.”
The upcoming holiday season is also different, both in the literal sense and in the way Midwesterners like me use it: as a metaphor for “bad.”
Not all Americans can get a COVID-19 test when they want | FiveThirtyEight
Thanksgiving does not exist in isolation. It’s not a thing one family is doing alone. And it will be followed, over the next month and a half, by a series of gathering-friendly events, including Black Friday, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s. Those two factors together explode a personal risk into a community crisis.
“I think about social gatherings and their impact on a community with an analogy to fire,” said Pinar Keskinocak, director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems at Georgia Tech. “If you build a fire in a BBQ or a small brick fire pit, it is contained. That is how we often think about small gatherings. But if you build a fire on the ground in a pine forest which has not seen rain in months, and many other small groups do the same, you can imagine what happens very quickly.”
[Related:What A Summer Of COVID-19 Taught Scientists About Indoor vs. Outdoor Transmission]
Risks are multiplied by dozens of dinner parties across town, and then grow over time as those dinner party attendees interact with other people in stores, waiting rooms and other small gatherings in the following weeks. This is how you get exponential growth, and it’s why experts are warning you against gathering a few loved ones at home now, even though throughout the summer all you heard about was the dangers of parties and rallies and protests and festivals, attended by dozens or hundreds or thousands of people instead of just the handful who might come to your dinner table. When there were fewer cases, it took a big gathering to make it likely that someone there was infected. But the water rose and now it’s threatening to drown us.
Again, the basic principles here aren’t new, Benjamin said. The same thing basically happens with the flu every year, he told me. Kids get exposed at school and spend the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s passing it around from one family gathering to another. As the holidays end, flu season starts to peak.
But COVID-19 is not the flu. It’s far more deadly. It’s far more debilitating in the long term. It’s far easier to spread even if you don’t have symptoms, or don’t have symptoms yet. The virus is common enough now in a lot of places that you can’t really be confident that even a small event doesn’t include someone contagious. And holding many small events on the same day creates an opportunity for COVID-19 to spread exponentially, and disperse from Thanksgiving tables back into the community of each person who sat at them. Which just makes the risk of the next holiday higher.
It might seem unfair to ask people not to see relatives and friends they’ve missed, not to let a college student travel home for Thanksgiving dinner, not to enjoy this small pleasure. It might seem inconsistent to have focused on the dangers of large gatherings all year and begin warning about small gatherings just as they feel the most valuable. But this is a new phase of the pandemic. There’s more virus, in more places, and avoiding it has become harder. Even knowing where you caught it is harder. “The prevalence is so high in the community right now,” Shah said. “You have to see and treat everybody as infected.”


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-20--Daryl Morey Needed Three Weeks To Fix One Of The Sixers’ Big Problems

Daryl Morey has been the president of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers for less than three weeks , but he has wasted no time putting his stamp on the team ’ s roster .
The league ’ s most prolific trader while with the Houston Rockets , Morey swung two draft day deals designed to address his new team ’ s biggest weakness .
In the first , he flipped the ill-fitting Al Horford to Oklahoma City ( along with first- and second-round picks , plus the rights to Serbian guard Vasilije Micić ) for Danny Green — whom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deal for Dennis Schröder — and Terrance Ferguson .
In the second , Morey sent Josh Richardson and the rights to No .
36 overall pick Tyler Bey to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Seth Curry .
[ The Upsides And Downsides Of The NBA ’ s Five Biggest Trades So Far ] The Sixers duo of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons has been at its best when surrounded by shooters .
The lineup that paired those two with J.J. Redick , Robert Covington and Dario Šarić , for example , outscored @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The pair plus Redick , Wilson Chandler and Jimmy Butler compiled 12.2 more points per 100 possessions than their foes .
With Redick , Butler and Tobias Harris , their margin was plus-19.6 per 100 possessions .
The 2019-20 Sixers actually knocked down threes at a better-than-average rate ( 36.8 percent ) , but they attempted treys less often than the average team .
That shouldn ’ t be as much of a problem with marksmen like Curry ( 44.3 percent from three for his career ) and Green ( 40 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly doesn ’ t hurt that Green has extensive experience working as a 3-and-D guy with stars of all stripes , while Curry has played alongside Damian Lillard , CJ McCollum and Luka Dončić .
Morey ’ s attempt to secure snipers didn ’ t stop there .
With the No .
49 pick , the Sixers snagged Arkansas shooting guard Isaiah Joe .
Joe was widely considered one of the best shooters in the draft despite connecting on only 34.2 percent of his treys last season .
He hit 41.4 percent from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ season , making him a 37.8 percent shooter on more than 500 career attempts from outside the arc .
He was also one of only 10 power-conference players to hit at least 75 threes in each of the past two seasons .
Later in the second round , Morey picked up analytics darling Paul Reed .
An athletic forward who claims he runs the floor like a deer , Reed was one of only 10 collegiate players since the 1992-93 season to average at least 10 rebounds , 1.5 steals and 2.5 blocks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thybulle and Zhaire Smith off the bench , and the Sixers have a whole mess of long , rangy defenders to throw at opponents and try to force some turnovers , which in turn should help mitigate any spacing issues associated with the Embiid-Simmons pairing by ratcheting up transition opportunities at the expense of half-court possessions .
Morey ’ s first pick of the night , though , may have been his most interesting .
Kentucky point guard Tyrese Maxey isn ’ t yet a knockdown shooter ( he made only 29.2 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ free-throw percentage ( 83.3 percent ) is encouraging , and he is extremely aggressive trying to get downhill and into the paint .
[ One Wild Week Of The NBA Offseason ] The Sixers badly need someone other than Simmons who can collapse the defense from the outside-in off the drive , and Maxey should be able to provide that for them .
Harris and Richardson were , other than Simmons , the team ’ s two most frequent drivers last season , per NBA Advanced Stats , but were both among the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the drive rather than shoot .
Philadelphia has often struggled even to throw basic entry passes to Embiid in the post without Simmons on the floor , and Maxey should help there as well .
And at 6-foot-3 , Maxey has the size to defend both guard spots , meaning he could eventually be a fit alongside Simmons if his jumper ever comes around .
Throughout his tenure in Houston , Morey was famous for adhering strictly to the math behind basketball .
He said often that he ’ d do things a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different roster , and he indeed has one now .
Doing things a bit differently than he did with the Rockets doesn ’ t necessarily mean abandoning his principles , though .
So , it should come as no surprise that each of Morey ’ s acquisitions aligned with attributes he has considered valuable in the past : shooting , defense , athleticism , shots at the rim .
He may have changed cities and rosters , but he hasn ’ t changed his stripes .

Daryl Morey has been the president of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers for less than three weeks, but he has wasted no time putting his stamp on the team’s roster. The league’s most prolific trader while with the Houston Rockets, Morey swung two draft day deals designed to address his new team’s biggest weakness.
In the first, he flipped the ill-fitting Al Horford to Oklahoma City (along with first- and second-round picks, plus the rights to Serbian guard Vasilije Micić) for Danny Green — whom the Thunder had acquired in an earlier deal for Dennis Schröder — and Terrance Ferguson. In the second, Morey sent Josh Richardson and the rights to No. 36 overall pick Tyler Bey to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Seth Curry.
[The Upsides And Downsides Of The NBA’s Five Biggest Trades So Far]
The Sixers duo of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons has been at its best when surrounded by shooters. The lineup that paired those two with J.J. Redick, Robert Covington and Dario Šarić, for example, outscored opponents by 17.7 points per 100 possessions. The pair plus Redick, Wilson Chandler and Jimmy Butler compiled 12.2 more points per 100 possessions than their foes. With Redick, Butler and Tobias Harris, their margin was plus-19.6 per 100 possessions.
The 2019-20 Sixers actually knocked down threes at a better-than-average rate (36.8 percent), but they attempted treys less often than the average team. That shouldn’t be as much of a problem with marksmen like Curry (44.3 percent from three for his career) and Green (40 percent) sliding into the rotation. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Green has extensive experience working as a 3-and-D guy with stars of all stripes, while Curry has played alongside Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Luka Dončić.
Morey’s attempt to secure snipers didn’t stop there. With the No. 49 pick, the Sixers snagged Arkansas shooting guard Isaiah Joe. Joe was widely considered one of the best shooters in the draft despite connecting on only 34.2 percent of his treys last season. He hit 41.4 percent from deep as a freshman during the 2018-19 season, making him a 37.8 percent shooter on more than 500 career attempts from outside the arc. He was also one of only 10 power-conference players to hit at least 75 threes in each of the past two seasons.
Later in the second round, Morey picked up analytics darling Paul Reed. An athletic forward who claims he runs the floor like a deer, Reed was one of only 10 collegiate players since the 1992-93 season to average at least 10 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 2.5 blocks per game. Pair him with Matisse Thybulle and Zhaire Smith off the bench, and the Sixers have a whole mess of long, rangy defenders to throw at opponents and try to force some turnovers, which in turn should help mitigate any spacing issues associated with the Embiid-Simmons pairing by ratcheting up transition opportunities at the expense of half-court possessions.
Morey’s first pick of the night, though, may have been his most interesting. Kentucky point guard Tyrese Maxey isn’t yet a knockdown shooter (he made only 29.2 percent of his threes), but his free-throw percentage (83.3 percent) is encouraging, and he is extremely aggressive trying to get downhill and into the paint.
[One Wild Week Of The NBA Offseason]
The Sixers badly need someone other than Simmons who can collapse the defense from the outside-in off the drive, and Maxey should be able to provide that for them. Harris and Richardson were, other than Simmons, the team’s two most frequent drivers last season, per NBA Advanced Stats, but were both among the least likely high-volume drivers to pass on the drive rather than shoot. Philadelphia has often struggled even to throw basic entry passes to Embiid in the post without Simmons on the floor, and Maxey should help there as well. And at 6-foot-3, Maxey has the size to defend both guard spots, meaning he could eventually be a fit alongside Simmons if his jumper ever comes around.
Throughout his tenure in Houston, Morey was famous for adhering strictly to the math behind basketball. He said often that he’d do things a little bit differently if he had a different roster, and he indeed has one now. Doing things a bit differently than he did with the Rockets doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning his principles, though. So, it should come as no surprise that each of Morey’s acquisitions aligned with attributes he has considered valuable in the past: shooting, defense, athleticism, shots at the rim. He may have changed cities and rosters, but he hasn’t changed his stripes.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-21--How To Trust That A COVID-19 Vaccine Is Safe

The safety of the COVID vaccine is on a lot of people ’ s minds these days .
As multiple @ @ @ @ @ about the effectiveness of their COVID vaccines , it feels like a cure for this @ @ @ @ @ .
But for many people injecting a brand-new scientific discovery into their body doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ , how can we be sure that the cure won ’ t be worse than @ @ @ @ @ regulators decide what an acceptable side effect is ?
And what would happen if someone @ @ @ @ @ to the COVID vaccine after it was released ?
This week ’ s episode of @ @ @ @ @ those questions .
Don ’ t want to miss an episode of PODCAST-19 , FiveThirtyEight @ @ @ @ @ what we know — and what we know we don ’ t know — about @ @ @ @ @ favorite podcasting app .
For example , here ’ s where to do it on @ @ @ @ @

The safety of the COVID vaccine is on a lot of people’s minds these days. As multiple pharmaceutical companies release promising reports about the effectiveness of their COVID vaccines, it feels like a cure for this pandemic may be in sight. But for many people injecting a brand-new scientific discovery into their body doesn’t sit well. So, how can we be sure that the cure won’t be worse than the disease? How do regulators decide what an acceptable side effect is? And what would happen if someone did have a serious reaction to the COVID vaccine after it was released? This week’s episode of PODCAST-19 is devoted to answering those questions.
Don’t want to miss an episode of PODCAST-19, FiveThirtyEight’s weekly look at what we know — and what we know we don’t know — about COVID-19? Subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. For example, here’s where to do it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
[Related: What To Make Of Pfizer’s Big Vaccine Announcement]


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-23--What We Know About How White and Latino Americans Voted In 2020

As results rolled in from Florida on election night , one thing became clear almost immediately : Joe Biden was underperforming in Miami-Dade County , home to most of Florida ’ s Cuban community .
Later in the evening , a similar story emerged from a handful of heavily Mexican American counties along Texas ’ s southern border .
Biden ultimately won most of these counties in both Florida and Texas , but by much slimmer margins than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier .
However , he did end up bringing Arizona — another state with many Latino voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time in a presidential election since 1996 .
At the same time — although the eventual results were not at all apparent on election night — Biden won three traditionally blue states that Clinton had lost in 2016 , Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , in part by improving on her performance among white voters with a four-year college degree .
Of course , the story of why Biden won back the “ blue wall ” but didn ’ t win Florida or Texas is much more complex than his gains among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his misses with some Latino voters .
As we ’ ve written before , no one group “ swings ” an election .
Nevertheless , it ’ s worth unpacking how these two demographic groups voted in 2020 , as they underscore larger geographical and educational divides in our country .
For one thing , the political gap between rural and urban America appears to have been even more pronounced this year than it was in 2016 , which may explain some of Trump ’ s success among Latino voters .
Education was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially among white voters , with white voters with a college degree moving toward Biden while white voters without a college degree remained largely in Trump ’ s column .
This is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 — over the coming weeks and months , we ’ ll have more deep dives into various corners of the American electorate as more data becomes available .
In this story , we ’ re zooming in on county-level results in a handful of key swing states to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parts of the country helped — and hurt — the two major candidates .
So let ’ s start with what we know about the voting patterns in heavily Latino counties in Arizona , Florida and Texas , and what that tells us about the country ’ s urban , suburban and rural divide .
What Latino voters tell us about America ’ s urban-rural divide In the lead-up to the election , there were plenty of signs that Biden ’ s support among Latino voters in key swing states might be weaker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but some of the shifts wound up being very large .
In Florida ’ s Miami-Dade County , for instance , which is 68 percent Hispanic , Trump narrowed his deficit by 22 percentage points between 2016 and 2020 ; in Texas ’ s Starr County , which is 99 percent Hispanic , Trump improved by a stunning 55 percentage points .
However , as the chart below shows , Trump ’ s gains among Latino voters were hardly universal .
In fact , the places where Trump appears to have gained the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans .
In suburban and urban areas , the story was much more mixed .
( And , to be clear , Biden still won the overwhelming majority of Latino votes . )
One important factor to keep in mind here — which is partially why some of these shifts toward Trump seem so pronounced — is that Trump did really poorly with Latino voters in 2016 .
According to pre-election surveys , he won just 18 percent of Latino voters in 2016 but 27 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the territory of other recent Republican presidential nominees .
Additionally , part of what we ’ re seeing here isn ’ t necessarily something unique to Latino voters at all , but an extension of America ’ s growing urban-rural divide .
As Bernard Fraga , a political science professor at Emory University who studies racial and ethnic politics , told us , “ Biden was never expected to make gains in rural populations and he didn ’ t really try .
… So if Trump is the candidate that people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s going to work with Latinos just like it works with other groups.
” One notable exception to this is Miami-Dade , which is a largely urban area .
But Sergio Garcia-Rios , a professor of political science at Cornell University who studies Latino identity , pointed out that Trump may have helped improve his standing among Latinos there by recognizing their diversity and focusing on a few groups where he had the potential to make inroads — like Cubans in South Florida .
The Trump campaign made outreach to Cuban voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s tough record on Cuba while also drumming up the ( inaccurate ) idea that Biden was a “ Trojan horse ” bringing socialism to the U.S.
It ’ s a message designed especially for voters who trace their roots to Cuba and other countries with histories of socialist dictatorships .
And that tack seemed to pay off , especially in Miami-Dade County , where more than half of the Hispanic population is of Cuban origin .
Trump still lost the county , but this time just by 7 points after losing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He made substantial gains across the whole county , but especially in areas heavily populated by Cuban Americans .
Notably , though , Trump didn ’ t make quite as dramatic inroads in Osceola County , Florida — part of the Orlando metro area — which is heavily Puerto Rican , though he still gained there , losing it by 14 points compared to 25 points in 2016 .
Dario Moreno , a politics professor at Florida International University , told us that Trump ’ s improved margin there may have been due @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave of COVID-19 restrictions on businesses would hurt an area heavily dependent on tourism .
In fact , in an election where the focus was more on COVID-19 and the economy , it ’ s not that surprising that Trump returned to a similar level of support among Latinos as other recent Republican presidential candidates , according to Garcia-Rios , as concern about jobs and business lockdowns in particular may have nudged some conservative voters toward Trump .
“ We might … disagree about whether Trump ’ s economy has really helped minorities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that for their jobs , for their families , Trump is the answer , ” Garcia-Rios said , pointing to survey after survey that showed Latinos ’ top election issues were COVID-19 , health care , the economy and jobs .
Other issues like immigration and discrimination , where Trump has a long history of race-baiting and trying to clamp down on migration , were a lower priority this year .
“ We do a disservice when we paint the Latino vote with a broad brush , ” Garcia-Rios added .
There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Democrats ’ Latino outreach was sufficient .
In the lead-up to the election , the campaign ’ s lack of a cohesive strategy for reaching Latino voters was heavily criticized , and it may have even contributed to some smaller losses among urban and suburban Latinos .
For instance , whereas Biden improved over Clinton in the whiter areas on the periphery of Harris County , Texas ( the home of Houston ) , Trump notably decreased his deficits in heavily Hispanic precincts toward the more central areas of the county , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Similarly , Trump did somewhat worse this time around in Maricopa County , which is home to the city of Phoenix and about 60 percent of Arizona ’ s votes , but he did perform slightly better in many Latino-heavy precincts , including the 7th Congressional District that is almost 60 percent Mexican American .
It ’ s worth reiterating that Biden still won far more votes in Latino sections of Houston and Phoenix than the president did .
But that success may have little to do with Biden ’ s campaign and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This , experts told us , underscores that Democrats really can ’ t take Latino voters for granted — and a lack of investment in Latino outreach and organizing could hurt them in the long term .
Lisa García Bedolla , a political scientist at the University of California , Berkeley , pointed out that Latino community organizers have been working for more than a decade in Arizona to mobilize Latino voters politically , which almost certainly benefited Biden and Democrats this year .
“ Demography isn ’ t destiny when it comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The explanation for why Latinos voted the way they did this year is about history , it ’ s about geography and it ’ s about where coalition-building and community organizing has been happening for years — not just what a presidential candidate did or didn ’ t do this cycle.
” In the three “ blue wall ” states that Biden recaptured in 2020 , meanwhile , voters were deeply divided by education .
The education split has been especially significant among white voters , and this rift appears to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , especially in areas where many white voters have four-year college degrees .
As the chart below shows , the larger a county ’ s share of non-Hispanic white voters with a college degree , the worse Trump tended to perform compared to 2016 .
Conversely , even though pre-election polls suggested that Biden might be poised to make some gains among white voters without a college degree , that didn ’ t happen .
Trump held his ground and even made further inroads in predominantly white counties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not enough for him to win .
And across the most highly-educated counties in these states — which include some populous suburban areas — Biden improved substantially on Clinton ’ s margins .
In Wisconsin , for instance , Biden won by 0.6 points statewide after Clinton lost by a similarly slim margin in 2016 .
And part of that came down to Trump ’ s deterioration in the traditionally Republican Milwaukee suburbs .
Trump still won Waukesha County , by far the largest of the GOP-leaning Milwaukee suburban counties , by 21 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drop from his 2016 advantage there .
And that was in part because of how white voters with a four-year college degree broke ( around 40 percent of Waukesha ’ s population is white and college educated ) .
In other words , areas that were once pretty Republican , like Waukesha , still moved away from Trump because of how white voters with a college education trended .
The same was true in Michigan and Pennsylvania .
For instance , in Oakland County , a populous Detroit suburb with a hefty share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s deficit increased from 8 points in 2016 to 14 points in 2020 .
Similarly , Trump lost Chester County , a suburb of Philadelphia , where nearly half of the population is made up of white voters with a college degree , by 9 points in 2016 and 17 points this year .
Ashley Jardina , a political science professor at Duke University who studies white identity politics and the education divide , said that white college-educated voters might be especially likely to have been alienated this year by Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to abandon him in even greater numbers than in 2016 .
“ A lot of college-educated whites were not that turned off by Trump ’ s rhetoric about women or people of color , ” she said .
“ But we ’ re now in the middle of a pandemic and if you ’ re a college-educated person who cares about good government , Trump ’ s handling of the response might really matter to you.
” On the other hand , counties with larger shares of less educated white voters largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these counties lie , not coincidentally , in rural areas , where Trump ’ s electoral strength largely held or improved regardless of its racial or ethnic makeup .
Take Clark County in central Wisconsin , where the vast majority of the population is white and doesn ’ t have a college degree .
Trump won the county by 32 points in 2016 , but expanded his edge to 37 points in 2020 .
The same pattern popped up in places similar to Clark , such as Clare County in central Michigan and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what is happening , according to Arlie Hochschild , a sociologist at the University of California who has written extensively about conservative voters , is that many less educated white voters have come to see Trump as their champion .
“ They feel that Trump is making them great again — their social class and their identity as whites , ” she said .
“ Many of them feel that as white [ people ] , they ’ re discriminated against.
” She added that even if Biden might have personally appealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been enough to overcome their suspicion that the Democratic Party as a whole was hostile to their worldview .
Importantly , Trump ’ s gains among white voters without a college degree were less substantial than his losses among educated white voters , and that appears to have cost him in these three states .
This was most stark in Wisconsin , where Trump ’ s margin improved in 39 of the state ’ s 72 counties , but fell in 31 and didn ’ t change in two .
The counties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bigger and more well-educated , while the ones where he gained were generally smaller and less well-educated .
In aggregate , these shifts added up to a narrow loss in Wisconsin for Trump in 2020 instead of the close win he achieved in 2016 .
And in general , that pattern illustrates a broader challenge for Republicans : White voters without a college degree are shrinking as a proportion of the broader population , while white voters with a college degree are growing as a share of the electorate .
But Biden ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a college degree may not represent a permanent realignment , according to Jardina .
“ I don ’ t think [ these voters ’ ] opposition to the Republican Party is crystallized , depending on what happens after Trump , ” she said .
More than anything , she added , the education gulf among white voters this year may illustrate the futility of Democrats ’ attempts to bring the white working class back into their coalition .
“ Democrats have focused on winning back white working-class voters and sort of taken whites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which strikes me as a strange , Pollyannaish strategy , ” she said .
“ [ White working-class voters ] are not their people now.
” As we said at the outset , this is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 but it ’ s worth underscoring what ’ s surprising about these initial findings .
Even though Trump ’ s overperformance among specific groups of Latino voters was one of the big stories coming out of election night , what we can see in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unexpected .
There were clear signs all along that Biden might be weaker than Clinton among Latinos voters , and the places where Trump appears to have gained support — in rural areas and among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans — just speaks to the diversity of a group that should never have been regarded as politically homogenous to begin with .
On the other hand , the widening of the education gap — and the emergence of geography as another important political divide — might be bigger takeaways , given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election .
Biden ’ s gains among white voters without a college degree simply didn ’ t materialize , while Trump continued to make inroads with less-educated white voters — although it wasn ’ t enough to win him the election .
But importantly , both groups offer a first look into what might be one of the defining trends of the 2020 election : the widening political chasm between urban , suburban and rural America .

What We Know About How White and Latino Americans Voted In 2020 The urban-rural and education divides are stronger than they were in 2016.
As results rolled in from Florida on election night, one thing became clear almost immediately: Joe Biden was underperforming in Miami-Dade County, home to most of Florida’s Cuban community. Later in the evening, a similar story emerged from a handful of heavily Mexican American counties along Texas’s southern border.
Biden ultimately won most of these counties in both Florida and Texas, but by much slimmer margins than Hillary Clinton had four years earlier. However, he did end up bringing Arizona — another state with many Latino voters — into the Democratic column for the first time in a presidential election since 1996.
What divided the electorate in 2020 | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
At the same time — although the eventual results were not at all apparent on election night — Biden won three traditionally blue states that Clinton had lost in 2016, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in part by improving on her performance among white voters with a four-year college degree.
Of course, the story of why Biden won back the “blue wall” but didn’t win Florida or Texas is much more complex than his gains among white voters with a college degree and his misses with some Latino voters. As we’ve written before, no one group “swings” an election. Nevertheless, it’s worth unpacking how these two demographic groups voted in 2020, as they underscore larger geographical and educational divides in our country.
[Related: What Blue And Red ‘Shifts’ Looked Like In Every State]
For one thing, the political gap between rural and urban America appears to have been even more pronounced this year than it was in 2016, which may explain some of Trump’s success among Latino voters. Education was once again a clear dividing line, especially among white voters, with white voters with a college degree moving toward Biden while white voters without a college degree remained largely in Trump’s column.
This is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 — over the coming weeks and months, we’ll have more deep dives into various corners of the American electorate as more data becomes available. In this story, we’re zooming in on county-level results in a handful of key swing states to help us understand how demographic divisions in pivotal parts of the country helped — and hurt — the two major candidates. So let’s start with what we know about the voting patterns in heavily Latino counties in Arizona, Florida and Texas, and what that tells us about the country’s urban, suburban and rural divide.
What Latino voters tell us about America’s urban-rural divide
In the lead-up to the election, there were plenty of signs that Biden’s support among Latino voters in key swing states might be weaker than Clinton’s in 2016, but some of the shifts wound up being very large. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, for instance, which is 68 percent Hispanic, Trump narrowed his deficit by 22 percentage points between 2016 and 2020; in Texas’s Starr County, which is 99 percent Hispanic, Trump improved by a stunning 55 percentage points.
However, as the chart below shows, Trump’s gains among Latino voters were hardly universal. In fact, the places where Trump appears to have gained the most support were largely in rural areas or among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans. In suburban and urban areas, the story was much more mixed. (And, to be clear, Biden still won the overwhelming majority of Latino votes.)
One important factor to keep in mind here — which is partially why some of these shifts toward Trump seem so pronounced — is that Trump did really poorly with Latino voters in 2016. According to pre-election surveys, he won just 18 percent of Latino voters in 2016 but 27 percent this year, putting him back in the territory of other recent Republican presidential nominees.
Additionally, part of what we’re seeing here isn’t necessarily something unique to Latino voters at all, but an extension of America’s growing urban-rural divide. As Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Emory University who studies racial and ethnic politics, told us, “Biden was never expected to make gains in rural populations and he didn’t really try. … So if Trump is the candidate that people in rural America identify with more, that’s going to work with Latinos just like it works with other groups.”
One notable exception to this is Miami-Dade, which is a largely urban area. But Sergio Garcia-Rios, a professor of political science at Cornell University who studies Latino identity, pointed out that Trump may have helped improve his standing among Latinos there by recognizing their diversity and focusing on a few groups where he had the potential to make inroads — like Cubans in South Florida. The Trump campaign made outreach to Cuban voters a priority early on, emphasizing Trump’s tough record on Cuba while also drumming up the (inaccurate) idea that Biden was a “Trojan horse” bringing socialism to the U.S. It’s a message designed especially for voters who trace their roots to Cuba and other countries with histories of socialist dictatorships. And that tack seemed to pay off, especially in Miami-Dade County, where more than half of the Hispanic population is of Cuban origin. Trump still lost the county, but this time just by 7 points after losing it by 29 points in 2016. He made substantial gains across the whole county, but especially in areas heavily populated by Cuban Americans.
[Republicans Won Almost Every Election Where Redistricting Was At Stake]
Notably, though, Trump didn’t make quite as dramatic inroads in Osceola County, Florida — part of the Orlando metro area — which is heavily Puerto Rican, though he still gained there, losing it by 14 points compared to 25 points in 2016. Dario Moreno, a politics professor at Florida International University, told us that Trump’s improved margin there may have been due to economic anxiety and fear that another wave of COVID-19 restrictions on businesses would hurt an area heavily dependent on tourism.
In fact, in an election where the focus was more on COVID-19 and the economy, it’s not that surprising that Trump returned to a similar level of support among Latinos as other recent Republican presidential candidates, according to Garcia-Rios, as concern about jobs and business lockdowns in particular may have nudged some conservative voters toward Trump.
“We might … disagree about whether Trump’s economy has really helped minorities, but some of them do believe that for their jobs, for their families, Trump is the answer,” Garcia-Rios said, pointing to survey after survey that showed Latinos’ top election issues were COVID-19, health care, the economy and jobs. Other issues like immigration and discrimination, where Trump has a long history of race-baiting and trying to clamp down on migration, were a lower priority this year. “We do a disservice when we paint the Latino vote with a broad brush,” Garcia-Rios added.
There is also the question of whether Biden and the Democrats’ Latino outreach was sufficient. In the lead-up to the election, the campaign’s lack of a cohesive strategy for reaching Latino voters was heavily criticized, and it may have even contributed to some smaller losses among urban and suburban Latinos. For instance, whereas Biden improved over Clinton in the whiter areas on the periphery of Harris County, Texas (the home of Houston), Trump notably decreased his deficits in heavily Hispanic precincts toward the more central areas of the county, which has a large Mexican-American population. Similarly, Trump did somewhat worse this time around in Maricopa County, which is home to the city of Phoenix and about 60 percent of Arizona’s votes, but he did perform slightly better in many Latino-heavy precincts, including the 7th Congressional District that is almost 60 percent Mexican American.
Polls were off for the 2020 election, but not by much | FiveThirtyEight
It’s worth reiterating that Biden still won far more votes in Latino sections of Houston and Phoenix than the president did. But that success may have little to do with Biden’s campaign and more to do with local organizers. This, experts told us, underscores that Democrats really can’t take Latino voters for granted — and a lack of investment in Latino outreach and organizing could hurt them in the long term.
Lisa García Bedolla, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed out that Latino community organizers have been working for more than a decade in Arizona to mobilize Latino voters politically, which almost certainly benefited Biden and Democrats this year. “Demography isn’t destiny when it comes to Latino voters,” she said. “The explanation for why Latinos voted the way they did this year is about history, it’s about geography and it’s about where coalition-building and community organizing has been happening for years — not just what a presidential candidate did or didn’t do this cycle.”
Education remained a dividing line, driving white voters further apart
In the three “blue wall” states that Biden recaptured in 2020, meanwhile, voters were deeply divided by education. The education split has been especially significant among white voters, and this rift appears to have widened as Trump lost ground in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, especially in areas where many white voters have four-year college degrees.
As the chart below shows, the larger a county’s share of non-Hispanic white voters with a college degree, the worse Trump tended to perform compared to 2016. Conversely, even though pre-election polls suggested that Biden might be poised to make some gains among white voters without a college degree, that didn’t happen. Trump held his ground and even made further inroads in predominantly white counties with lower levels of education — but not enough for him to win.
And across the most highly-educated counties in these states — which include some populous suburban areas — Biden improved substantially on Clinton’s margins. In Wisconsin, for instance, Biden won by 0.6 points statewide after Clinton lost by a similarly slim margin in 2016. And part of that came down to Trump’s deterioration in the traditionally Republican Milwaukee suburbs. Trump still won Waukesha County, by far the largest of the GOP-leaning Milwaukee suburban counties, by 21 points, but that marked a 6-point drop from his 2016 advantage there. And that was in part because of how white voters with a four-year college degree broke (around 40 percent of Waukesha’s population is white and college educated). In other words, areas that were once pretty Republican, like Waukesha, still moved away from Trump because of how white voters with a college education trended.
The same was true in Michigan and Pennsylvania. For instance, in Oakland County, a populous Detroit suburb with a hefty share of educated white voters, Trump’s deficit increased from 8 points in 2016 to 14 points in 2020. Similarly, Trump lost Chester County, a suburb of Philadelphia, where nearly half of the population is made up of white voters with a college degree, by 9 points in 2016 and 17 points this year.
Ashley Jardina, a political science professor at Duke University who studies white identity politics and the education divide, said that white college-educated voters might be especially likely to have been alienated this year by Trump’s handling of the pandemic — potentially leading them to abandon him in even greater numbers than in 2016. “A lot of college-educated whites were not that turned off by Trump’s rhetoric about women or people of color,” she said. “But we’re now in the middle of a pandemic and if you’re a college-educated person who cares about good government, Trump’s handling of the response might really matter to you.”
On the other hand, counties with larger shares of less educated white voters largely stuck with Trump. But most of these counties lie, not coincidentally, in rural areas, where Trump’s electoral strength largely held or improved regardless of its racial or ethnic makeup. Take Clark County in central Wisconsin, where the vast majority of the population is white and doesn’t have a college degree. Trump won the county by 32 points in 2016, but expanded his edge to 37 points in 2020. The same pattern popped up in places similar to Clark, such as Clare County in central Michigan and Mifflin County in central Pennsylvania.
Part of what is happening, according to Arlie Hochschild, a sociologist at the University of California who has written extensively about conservative voters, is that many less educated white voters have come to see Trump as their champion. “They feel that Trump is making them great again — their social class and their identity as whites,” she said. “Many of them feel that as white [people], they’re discriminated against.” She added that even if Biden might have personally appealed to those voters, it might not have been enough to overcome their suspicion that the Democratic Party as a whole was hostile to their worldview.
Importantly, Trump’s gains among white voters without a college degree were less substantial than his losses among educated white voters, and that appears to have cost him in these three states. This was most stark in Wisconsin, where Trump’s margin improved in 39 of the state’s 72 counties, but fell in 31 and didn’t change in two. The counties where he lost ground tended to be bigger and more well-educated, while the ones where he gained were generally smaller and less well-educated. In aggregate, these shifts added up to a narrow loss in Wisconsin for Trump in 2020 instead of the close win he achieved in 2016.
[Related: The Cabinet Appointments That Really Matter In The Incoming Biden Administration]
And in general, that pattern illustrates a broader challenge for Republicans: White voters without a college degree are shrinking as a proportion of the broader population, while white voters with a college degree are growing as a share of the electorate.
But Biden’s dramatic gains with white voters with a college degree may not represent a permanent realignment, according to Jardina. “I don’t think [these voters’] opposition to the Republican Party is crystallized, depending on what happens after Trump,” she said. More than anything, she added, the education gulf among white voters this year may illustrate the futility of Democrats’ attempts to bring the white working class back into their coalition. “Democrats have focused on winning back white working-class voters and sort of taken whites with a college degree as a given, which strikes me as a strange, Pollyannaish strategy,” she said. “[White working-class voters] are not their people now.”
As we said at the outset, this is just the beginning of our analysis of how Americans voted in 2020 but it’s worth underscoring what’s surprising about these initial findings.
Even though Trump’s overperformance among specific groups of Latino voters was one of the big stories coming out of election night, what we can see in the data isn’t actually all that unexpected. There were clear signs all along that Biden might be weaker than Clinton among Latinos voters, and the places where Trump appears to have gained support — in rural areas and among more conservative Latino voters like Cuban Americans — just speaks to the diversity of a group that should never have been regarded as politically homogenous to begin with.
On the other hand, the widening of the education gap — and the emergence of geography as another important political divide — might be bigger takeaways, given where the polling stood going into the election. Biden’s gains among white voters without a college degree simply didn’t materialize, while Trump continued to make inroads with less-educated white voters — although it wasn’t enough to win him the election. But importantly, both groups offer a first look into what might be one of the defining trends of the 2020 election: the widening political chasm between urban, suburban and rural America.
Will Georgia stay blue? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-23--Politics Podcast: Trump Is Setting A Dangerous Precedent For American Democracy

Three weeks after the election , President Trump is still refusing to concede and making attempts to subvert the results of the election .
His legal arguments have largely failed in court , but his campaign has encouraged local election officials to refuse to certify results and suggested state legislators should choose electors who would vote for Trump regardless of their state ’ s vote .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the team discusses the extent to which these anti-democratic efforts have been successful and what precedent they set going forward .
The crew also considers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current surge in coronavirus cases and asks what pollsters should do about falling response rates .
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn how to listen .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes .
Have a comment , question @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad polling ” ?
Get in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

Three weeks after the election, President Trump is still refusing to concede and making attempts to subvert the results of the election. His legal arguments have largely failed in court, but his campaign has encouraged local election officials to refuse to certify results and suggested state legislators should choose electors who would vote for Trump regardless of their state’s vote. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the team discusses the extent to which these anti-democratic efforts have been successful and what precedent they set going forward. The crew also considers how the government is responding to the current surge in coronavirus cases and asks what pollsters should do about falling response rates.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-23--What Are The Best Free Agent Fits Of The MLB Offseason?

After MLB ’ s lukewarm interest in free agency the past few seasons , this winter could bring an even less active marketplace .
COVID-19 slashed baseball revenues in 2020 , and teams are expected to cut payroll next season , which could hurt the middle class of free agents particularly hard .
But even during this recent trend away from high-dollar deals , the top free agents have remained in demand .
When Stephen Strasburg signed the biggest deal ever for a free agent pitcher last December , his record stood for just a few days before Gerrit Cole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York Yankees .
Similarly , the top of this class also includes high-quality free agents who can help contenders .
Free agency dealmaking usually intensifies starting in December , so before the hot stove heats up , let ’ s examine which teams might be the best fit for some of the best free agents in this class .
The New York Mets are one of the more intriguing teams this winter under new owner Steve Cohen , who jettisoned many members of the Mets ’ front office immediately after taking over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year , but they have some strengths they can build on : Over the 60-game season , the Mets tied the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers for the most efficient offense in the majors , according to weighted runs created plus ( wRC+ ) , and they ranked fifth in wins above replacement ( WAR ) for position players , according to FanGraphs ’ version of the stat .
Since the start of the 2019 season , Mets batters rank fifth in wRC+ and eighth in WAR .
The majority of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely returning next season , though they will be without Robinson Canó , who is suspended for the whole 2021 season after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs .
And they should have some money to spend on free agents : The Mets rank seventh in 2021 payroll commitments despite playing in the game ’ s largest market .
Where the Mets struggled in 2020 — even with ace Jacob deGrom improving in some ways — was on the mound .
The Mets ranked 26th in the majors in starting pitcher ERA last season @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ERA was also in the bottom half of the league .
While the Mets hope to get a full season from Marcus Stroman — who accepted his qualifying offer after deciding not to pitch last season — and expect Noah Syndergaard to return from Tommy John surgery at some point in 2021 , they could use another arm to shore up their once-fearsome rotation .
And who might be the perfect arm for a team with money to spend ?
Trevor Bauer .
Perhaps no player could elevate the Mets ’ chances like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ winner .
Pairing him with deGrom , who won the previous two awards , would likely give the Mets one of the best rotations in the game and give them a formidable one-two punch for a postseason run .
The Toronto Blue Jays broke out in 2020 , snapping a string of three straight losing seasons to reach the playoffs for just the third time since 1993 .
These Blue Jays found success with the youngest position player group in the majors last season ( 25.9 years old on average ) , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr .
But they may struggle to repeat that success if they don ’ t make any upgrades in the offseason .
They finished with a below-average Elo rating and were outscored as a team .
Toronto general manager Ross Atkins said the team is open to adding a “ super high impact ” player , and catcher J.T .
Realmuto would address a huge hole for the Jays : Toronto was one of six major league teams to receive below replacement-level production from catcher last year .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they may not want to give up yet on starter Danny Jansen , but Realmuto is a sure-thing star right now .
He tied for the second-best WAR mark last season among catchers with at least 100 plate appearances .
Over the past three seasons , Realmuto has delivered more WAR than any other catcher in the majors , slightly ahead of the second-place Yasmani Grandal and more than doubling the output of third-place Christian Vázquez .
That kind of production would be an upgrade for just about every contender , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the Blue Jays , who have promising young players at a number of other positions .
The Phillies can afford to trade a glove for a bat The Philadelphia Phillies are revamping their front office after missing the postseason yet again .
( They haven ’ t reached the playoffs since 2011 . )
The team has a number of needs to fill , so to end their playoff drought , they may need to get creative .
One factor working in their favor : No pitching staff had a greater ground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home field — Citizens Bank Park — has less fair territory to cover than any other ballpark , according to the calculations from Clem ’ s Baseball Blog ’ s ballpark database .
That means the Phillies might be able to get away with trading outfield defense for offense .
They could move a bat-first outfielder like Andrew McCutchen or Bryce Harper to center field full time ( the Phillies ranked 24th in center field WAR last season ) , opening up a corner spot for the biggest bat in free agency : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third in the majors in wRC+ ( 179 ) , and his underlying metrics — exit velocity , share of hard-hit balls and barrel percentage — rank as elite .
Ozuna ’ s glove is the question mark , but that could matter less in Philly than just about anywhere else .
Can the Nationals keep their window open ?
Entering 2020 , the Washington Nationals were expected to mount a strong title defense .
But though the team boasted stars Juan Soto and Max Scherzer , it failed to reach the postseason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particularly to starting pitcher Strasburg , first baseman Howie Kendrick and second baseman Starlin Castro .
But the Nats also weren ’ t helped by the play at one crucial position : center field .
According to FanGraphs WAR , Washington ’ s center field production ranked last in the majors .
George Springer is regarded as one of the top five free agents available , and he proved last season that his production wasn ’ t dependent on sign-stealing in Houston .
With Scherzer ( 36 ) , Strasburg ( 32 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the wrong side of 30 but still productive when healthy , the Nationals might be motivated to improve their roster and try to maximize their potential to win with this core .
The Reds could make a play for a Korean star Even if Bauer departs , the Cincinnati Reds could still have an above-average pitching staff , with arms like Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray returning .
But they have a big problem to address in the infield : The Reds generated just 0.1 WAR at shortstop last season , fourth-worst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are available at shortstop , but there ’ s also another option with higher potential upside : 25-year-old Korean Baseball Organization sensation Ha-Seong Kim .
Though scouts are high on Kim ’ s baseball tools , he has yet to prove himself in the majors , which could offer a mid-to-small-market club like the Reds the chance to sign him at a discount .

After MLB’s lukewarm interest in free agency the past few seasons, this winter could bring an even less active marketplace. COVID-19 slashed baseball revenues in 2020, and teams are expected to cut payroll next season, which could hurt the middle class of free agents particularly hard.
But even during this recent trend away from high-dollar deals, the top free agents have remained in demand. When Stephen Strasburg signed the biggest deal ever for a free agent pitcher last December, his record stood for just a few days before Gerrit Cole topped it with his contract with the New York Yankees. Similarly, the top of this class also includes high-quality free agents who can help contenders.
Free agency dealmaking usually intensifies starting in December, so before the hot stove heats up, let’s examine which teams might be the best fit for some of the best free agents in this class.
A reigning Cy Young winner might join deGrom
The New York Mets are one of the more intriguing teams this winter under new owner Steve Cohen, who jettisoned many members of the Mets’ front office immediately after taking over. The Mets missed the postseason last year, but they have some strengths they can build on: Over the 60-game season, the Mets tied the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers for the most efficient offense in the majors, according to weighted runs created plus (wRC+), and they ranked fifth in wins above replacement (WAR) for position players, according to FanGraphs’ version of the stat. Since the start of the 2019 season, Mets batters rank fifth in wRC+ and eighth in WAR. The majority of the team’s 2020 position players are likely returning next season, though they will be without Robinson Canó, who is suspended for the whole 2021 season after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. And they should have some money to spend on free agents: The Mets rank seventh in 2021 payroll commitments despite playing in the game’s largest market.
Where the Mets struggled in 2020 — even with ace Jacob deGrom improving in some ways — was on the mound. The Mets ranked 26th in the majors in starting pitcher ERA last season (5.37), and their bullpen ERA was also in the bottom half of the league. While the Mets hope to get a full season from Marcus Stroman — who accepted his qualifying offer after deciding not to pitch last season — and expect Noah Syndergaard to return from Tommy John surgery at some point in 2021, they could use another arm to shore up their once-fearsome rotation. And who might be the perfect arm for a team with money to spend? Trevor Bauer. Perhaps no player could elevate the Mets’ chances like the most recent NL Cy Young award winner. Pairing him with deGrom, who won the previous two awards, would likely give the Mets one of the best rotations in the game and give them a formidable one-two punch for a postseason run.
The Blue Jays want a “super high impact” player
The Toronto Blue Jays broke out in 2020, snapping a string of three straight losing seasons to reach the playoffs for just the third time since 1993. These Blue Jays found success with the youngest position player group in the majors last season (25.9 years old on average), including promising legacy players Cavan Biggio, Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. But they may struggle to repeat that success if they don’t make any upgrades in the offseason. They finished with a below-average Elo rating and were outscored as a team.
Toronto general manager Ross Atkins said the team is open to adding a “super high impact” player, and catcher J.T. Realmuto would address a huge hole for the Jays: Toronto was one of six major league teams to receive below replacement-level production from catcher last year. The team has some promising prospects, and they may not want to give up yet on starter Danny Jansen, but Realmuto is a sure-thing star right now. He tied for the second-best WAR mark last season among catchers with at least 100 plate appearances. Over the past three seasons, Realmuto has delivered more WAR than any other catcher in the majors, slightly ahead of the second-place Yasmani Grandal and more than doubling the output of third-place Christian Vázquez. That kind of production would be an upgrade for just about every contender, but it might be particularly valuable to a club like the Blue Jays, who have promising young players at a number of other positions.
The Phillies can afford to trade a glove for a bat
The Philadelphia Phillies are revamping their front office after missing the postseason yet again. (They haven’t reached the playoffs since 2011.) The team has a number of needs to fill, so to end their playoff drought, they may need to get creative. One factor working in their favor: No pitching staff had a greater ground ball rate last season, and their home field — Citizens Bank Park — has less fair territory to cover than any other ballpark, according to the calculations from Clem’s Baseball Blog’s ballpark database. That means the Phillies might be able to get away with trading outfield defense for offense. They could move a bat-first outfielder like Andrew McCutchen or Bryce Harper to center field full time (the Phillies ranked 24th in center field WAR last season), opening up a corner spot for the biggest bat in free agency: Marcell Ozuna. Last year he finished third in the majors in wRC+ (179), and his underlying metrics — exit velocity, share of hard-hit balls and barrel percentage — rank as elite. Ozuna’s glove is the question mark, but that could matter less in Philly than just about anywhere else.
Can the Nationals keep their window open?
Entering 2020, the Washington Nationals were expected to mount a strong title defense. But though the team boasted stars Juan Soto and Max Scherzer, it failed to reach the postseason. Injuries were a big problem — particularly to starting pitcher Strasburg, first baseman Howie Kendrick and second baseman Starlin Castro. But the Nats also weren’t helped by the play at one crucial position: center field. According to FanGraphs WAR, Washington’s center field production ranked last in the majors. George Springer is regarded as one of the top five free agents available, and he proved last season that his production wasn’t dependent on sign-stealing in Houston. With Scherzer (36), Strasburg (32) and Patrick Corbin (31) all on the wrong side of 30 but still productive when healthy, the Nationals might be motivated to improve their roster and try to maximize their potential to win with this core.
The Reds could make a play for a Korean star
Even if Bauer departs, the Cincinnati Reds could still have an above-average pitching staff, with arms like Luis Castillo and Sonny Gray returning. But they have a big problem to address in the infield: The Reds generated just 0.1 WAR at shortstop last season, fourth-worst in the majors. Several veteran options are available at shortstop, but there’s also another option with higher potential upside: 25-year-old Korean Baseball Organization sensation Ha-Seong Kim. Though scouts are high on Kim’s baseball tools, he has yet to prove himself in the majors, which could offer a mid-to-small-market club like the Reds the chance to sign him at a discount.


fivethirthyeight--2020-11-23--Every Day, The Chiefs Write The Book (On Epic Comebacks)

sara.ziegler ( Sara Ziegler , sports editor ) : Week 11 of this NFL season was a doozy .
We saw yet another quarterback lost to injury , a touchdown catch that truly defied physics and two matches between playoff contenders that each needed overtime .
But let ’ s start in Sin City , where the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Las Vegas Raiders in a seesaw affair .
Patrick Mahomes made another epic comeback look way too easy , while Derek Carr stared us all down from the sideline : The Chiefs needed just one minute and 15 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ game-winning touchdown .
That would be stunning for most teams … but for this era of the Chiefs , I think we would have been more surprised if they hadn ’ t come back and scored .
How do they keep doing this ?
Salfino ( Michael Salfino , FiveThirtyEight contributor ) : What was weird is that even though we all sorta knew that Mahomes was going to win the game , he had never done that before .
How can that be ?
neil ( Neil Paine , senior sportswriter ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stunned by that stat as well .
Technically , he missed it by 44 seconds in last year ’ s Super Bowl .
Salfino : I guess he ’ s so prolific that he doesn ’ t usually need late comebacks .
neil : And they score too fast !
He ’ s breaking our stat-keeping .
joshua.hermsmeyer ( Josh Hermsmeyer , NFL analyst ) : Last postseason , when the Chiefs had all those comebacks , the deficits were large fairly early .
I don ’ t think that makes them any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On Sunday night , 63 percent of the plays the Chiefs ran were a success .
It ’ s unfair .
neil : Agreed .
This is the advantage of having the best QB — and best passing attack — on the planet .
No lead is ever safe against them .
Although credit to Carr and the Raiders for hanging in there almost punch for punch .
They just left too much time for K.C .
to work with .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Right .
I have heard some pundits say that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race with Kansas City .
That may be true , but it ’ s still your best shot .
And man , it makes for good football .
Salfino : Having both Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill is unfair .
sara.ziegler : It was fun to see Carr play the Raiders into position to win .
Salfino : Carr was great .
I think a big play in the game was the Raiders ’ third-and-1 incompletion toward the end of the second quarter that may have had interference in the end zone .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the Raiders got a bench penalty for complaining about the non-call .
And then they kicked a field goal : A field goal against the Chiefs definitely gets you 3 points closer to losing .
sara.ziegler : What ’ s the ceiling for the Raiders ?
They ’ ve been so inconsistent all season .
Can they make noise in the playoffs ?
Salfino : I think Jon Gruden is really coaching them up , but their talent level is just not there , especially on defense .
They can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give them a 1 percent Super Bowl shot , haha .
But Carr is having a really good season — they ’ re one of those all-offense/no-defense teams that maybe could get hot .
A few teams out there fit that description .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I do these similarity scores each week , and since Week 5 , Carr has had the easiest strength of schedule by that metric , meaning the passing defenses he faces allow completions where he tends to throw them .
I think that explains some of his success @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best in his career according to ESPN ’ s Total Quarterback Rating .
neil : That ’ s really interesting , Josh .
He ’ s literally taking what the defense is giving him .
Salfino : It ’ s the opposite of the Raiders way , which used to be to “ take what we want.
” neil : Just win ( heat-mapped areas of the field as defined by advanced metrics ) , baby .
Let ’ s turn to the Tennessee Titans , who went to Baltimore and left with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been another up-and-down team .
Did this game play out the way you guys expected it to ?
neil : Not at all !
I couldn ’ t believe the Ravens let that slip away , and I wasn ’ t sure the Titans were a team built for that kind of comeback — at least not against that defense .
Salfino : Just make Derrick Henry the Mayor of Baltimore already .
He owns the place .
I was not surprised by this game .
The Ravens are not very good now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joshua.hermsmeyer : Henry gave the Ravens yet another L , as Seth Walder pointed out : sara.ziegler : I love that so much .
Next up should be players spelling out whole words with their plays .
neil : The player tracking version of this .
sara.ziegler : Exactly .
Make it so !
Salfino : What was going on during the pregame ?
Is there an unwritten rule about not congregating on the other team ’ s logo ?
This has famously caused ruckuses before .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I have no idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He barely acknowledged Titans coach Mike Vrabel after the game .
Salfino : I think the Ravens are just frustrated .
They ’ ve been so close for years and now are not close anymore .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I think this one hurt a lot for the Ravens .
They spent their entire offseason loading up on the defense instead of getting Lamar Jackson another weapon in the passing game , and then proceeded to give up three long drives , including the game winner in overtime .
neil : What the heck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
( Or maybe the question is : What went on LAST season that they can ’ t recapture ? )
Salfino : Neil , I think that Lamar can ’ t throw outside the numbers and teams know it and now are clogging the middle , which also hurts his running .
I don ’ t think the Ravens and Lamar have a Plan B. joshua.hermsmeyer : Lamar ’ s touchdown to Mark Andrews was a beautiful pass outside the left numbers .
It ’ s not an inability to throw there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the passing scheme .
Salfino : Basically , though , our eyes have not been lying .
Lamar is a very limited passer .
joshua.hermsmeyer : For some value of limited , I agree .
But a good scheme and surrounding talent can emphasize what he does well , which is throw deep and over the middle off of play-action while using the pressure he puts on a defense with his legs to help his receivers get separation .
neil : For what it ’ s worth , his top three targets from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year — Andrews , Marquise Brown , Willie Snead , in that order .
But last year , Lamar had a 9.0 percent TD rate and 5.4 percent sack rate .
Those have basically flipped around this year : 5.4 percent TDs , 8.0 percent sacks .
sara.ziegler : I guess it ’ s hard for me to write off this team just yet .
I still think the Ravens can do some damage in the playoffs , if they can put the pieces together like we ’ ve seen them do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now they are out of the playoffs , right ?
And they face Pittsburgh on Thursday on the road ?
Yikes .
sara.ziegler : They ’ re tied for that seventh slot right now .
But they still have games against the Cowboys , Browns , Jaguars , Giants and Bengals , so… Salfino : Good point .
They ’ re behind in tiebreakers now , but they ’ ll win at least four of those games , I have to believe .
neil : The Steelers being as good as they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Ravens have almost no chance of winning the division now and must get in via wild card .
sara.ziegler : Would we even be that surprised to see them beat the Steelers this week ?
The Ravens really should have won their first matchup .
Salfino : I ’ d be surprised .
Not shocked though .
joshua.hermsmeyer : If only they could rely on their defense , smh .
sara.ziegler : Let ’ s talk about the other great overtime game on Sunday , in which the Indianapolis Colts beat the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t always pretty : Indy ’ s last series in regulation was just about a textbook example of how to throw away a game .
The Colts were flagged six times in 30 seconds !
But I was impressed by the Colts defense against an obviously very good Aaron Rodgers and company .
neil : Nice comeback win for Old Man Rivers , too .
Salfino : It was a weird game in that the Packers had no business being up by 14 points , but they were — and usually that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for their opponents .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Green Bay ’ s TD putting them up 28-14 to end the half off a pass interference call had to have them feeling like they had this game in the bag .
The Packers scored just 3 points in the second half , but it was also a pretty spectacular collapse by the Green Bay defense .
sara.ziegler : And then Indy had to feel like they had it sewn up with two minutes left , after getting a first down on fourth-and-long .
So maybe it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to overtime after all .
Salfino : I feel like I ’ m underrating the Colts ’ chances .
They outpass their opponents ( according to net yards per attempt ) pretty significantly .
neil : They seem to be gaining steam , with that convincing win over Tennessee and now this comeback against Green Bay .
Rivers didn ’ t look great to start the season , but he has been playing better of late as well .
Salfino : They need someone that defenses need to worry about .
I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guy , but they threw him only three passes on Sunday .
( He caught all three , for 66 yards . )
sara.ziegler : I ’ m still not sure that Rivers can or should be trusted .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I think Rivers ’ s play probably explains it .
Even the venerable Nick Saban has admitted that offense beats defense .
Heady times .
Salfino : I see no difference now between Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger besides Roethlisberger ’ s ridiculous receiving talent .
By the way … Salfino : How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ love it when all of fantasy Twitter has to eat crow .
joshua.hermsmeyer : I think we need to take a *slightly* longer view here , Mike .
Happy for Sean Payton and the Saints on their win though .
Salfino : I ’ m workshopping “ The Saints are better with Hill , ” Josh .
neil : On the one hand , it ’ s one game , and the Falcons are nobody ’ s idea of a dominating defense .
But maybe that Payton guy also knows a little about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I ’ m seeing the 1990 Giants with Drew Brees as Phil Simms and Hill as Jeff Hostetler .
joshua.hermsmeyer : If Taysom had a porn ‘ stache , there would be no stopping him .
Salfino : Brees has not been that good anymore , I think we all agree .
Hill was hyper-efficient on Sunday and threw the ball great .
He provides another dimension with his running .
And like Simms in 1990 , we have no idea when Brees will be back .
( Eleven broken ribs seems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that you are legitimately trying to make this a thing .
joshua.hermsmeyer : Hill skipped a short pass in the flat yesterday .
There ’ s still some work to do .
neil : Yeah .
Hill ’ s QBR in that one revelatory game was 14 points lower than Brees ’ s mark for the season .
But it WAS much higher than Jameis ’ s !
Salfino : I hated gimmicky Taysom , but this is real now .
Michael Thomas also dropped a perfect pass , so we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better than anyone had a right to believe .
And he passed Walter Payton on the all-time passing list !
neil : Sara and I were stunned to learn that , before Sunday , Walter Payton had nearly twice as many career pass attempts as Taysom Hill .
Salfino : We laughed when Payton compared rookie Alvin Kamara to Marshall Faulk , and we ’ re laughing at Payton when he compares Hill to Steve Young .
But Payton is laughing last .
Salfino : I said last week that Payton is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Costello recorded a country-western album of cover songs .
It was good !
Let Payton have fun .
neil : idk , I think the Saints will be “ Almost Blue ” with Taysom at some point , and they will “ Get Happy ” when Brees returns .
We have reached my Elvis Costello reference quota for the day .
neil : I am only the humble Delivery Man .

Every Day, The Chiefs Write The Book (On Epic Comebacks)
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): Week 11 of this NFL season was a doozy. We saw yet another quarterback lost to injury, a touchdown catch that truly defied physics and two matches between playoff contenders that each needed overtime.
But let’s start in Sin City, where the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Las Vegas Raiders in a seesaw affair. Patrick Mahomes made another epic comeback look way too easy, while Derek Carr stared us all down from the sideline:
when someone says Depeche Mode is better than The Cure pic.twitter.com/zmKx50egPE — Mina Kimes (@minakimes) November 23, 2020
The Chiefs needed just one minute and 15 seconds to drive the field for the game-winning touchdown. That would be stunning for most teams … but for this era of the Chiefs, I think we would have been more surprised if they hadn’t come back and scored. How do they keep doing this?
Salfino (Michael Salfino, FiveThirtyEight contributor): What was weird is that even though we all sorta knew that Mahomes was going to win the game, he had never done that before. How can that be?
neil (Neil Paine, senior sportswriter): Yeah, Mike, I was stunned by that stat as well. Technically, he missed it by 44 seconds in last year’s Super Bowl.
Salfino: I guess he’s so prolific that he doesn’t usually need late comebacks.
neil: And they score too fast! He’s breaking our stat-keeping.
joshua.hermsmeyer (Josh Hermsmeyer, NFL analyst): Last postseason, when the Chiefs had all those comebacks, the deficits were large fairly early. I don’t think that makes them any less spectacular though.
Mahomes is incomparable. On Sunday night, 63 percent of the plays the Chiefs ran were a success. It’s unfair.
neil: Agreed. This is the advantage of having the best QB — and best passing attack — on the planet. No lead is ever safe against them.
Although credit to Carr and the Raiders for hanging in there almost punch for punch. They just left too much time for K.C. to work with.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Right. I have heard some pundits say that you can’t win a boat race with Kansas City. That may be true, but it’s still your best shot. And man, it makes for good football.
Salfino: Having both Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill is unfair.
sara.ziegler: It was fun to see Carr play the Raiders into position to win.
Salfino: Carr was great. I think a big play in the game was the Raiders’ third-and-1 incompletion toward the end of the second quarter that may have had interference in the end zone. Instead of getting the pass interference call, the Raiders got a bench penalty for complaining about the non-call. And then they kicked a field goal: A field goal against the Chiefs definitely gets you 3 points closer to losing.
sara.ziegler: What’s the ceiling for the Raiders? They’ve been so inconsistent all season. Can they make noise in the playoffs?
Salfino: I think Jon Gruden is really coaching them up, but their talent level is just not there, especially on defense. They can’t cover or rush.
neil: We give them a 1 percent Super Bowl shot, haha. But Carr is having a really good season — they’re one of those all-offense/no-defense teams that maybe could get hot. A few teams out there fit that description.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I do these similarity scores each week, and since Week 5, Carr has had the easiest strength of schedule by that metric, meaning the passing defenses he faces allow completions where he tends to throw them. I think that explains some of his success this season, which has been the best in his career according to ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating.
neil: That’s really interesting, Josh. He’s literally taking what the defense is giving him.
Salfino: It’s the opposite of the Raiders way, which used to be to “take what we want.”
neil: Just win (heat-mapped areas of the field as defined by advanced metrics), baby.
sara.ziegler: Hahahaha
Let’s turn to the Tennessee Titans, who went to Baltimore and left with an overtime win. The Titans have been another up-and-down team. Did this game play out the way you guys expected it to?
neil: Not at all! I couldn’t believe the Ravens let that slip away, and I wasn’t sure the Titans were a team built for that kind of comeback — at least not against that defense.
Salfino: Just make Derrick Henry the Mayor of Baltimore already. He owns the place.
I was not surprised by this game. The Ravens are not very good now. They have no passing game.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Henry gave the Ravens yet another L, as Seth Walder pointed out:
Derrick Henry literally handed the Ravens an L pic.twitter.com/r7Sjrv7Yx7 — Seth Walder (@SethWalder) November 22, 2020
sara.ziegler: I love that so much. Next up should be players spelling out whole words with their plays.
neil: The player tracking version of this.
joshua.hermsmeyer: LOL
sara.ziegler: Exactly. Make it so!
Salfino: What was going on during the pregame? Is there an unwritten rule about not congregating on the other team’s logo? This has famously caused ruckuses before.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I have no idea what John Harbaugh was up to. He barely acknowledged Titans coach Mike Vrabel after the game.
Salfino: I think the Ravens are just frustrated. They’ve been so close for years and now are not close anymore.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I think this one hurt a lot for the Ravens. They spent their entire offseason loading up on the defense instead of getting Lamar Jackson another weapon in the passing game, and then proceeded to give up three long drives, including the game winner in overtime.
neil: What the heck is going on with Lamar this season? (Or maybe the question is: What went on LAST season that they can’t recapture?)
Salfino: Neil, I think that Lamar can’t throw outside the numbers and teams know it and now are clogging the middle, which also hurts his running. I don’t think the Ravens and Lamar have a Plan B.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Lamar’s touchdown to Mark Andrews was a beautiful pass outside the left numbers. It’s not an inability to throw there, it’s his weapons and the passing scheme.
Salfino: Basically, though, our eyes have not been lying. Lamar is a very limited passer.
joshua.hermsmeyer: For some value of limited, I agree. But a good scheme and surrounding talent can emphasize what he does well, which is throw deep and over the middle off of play-action while using the pressure he puts on a defense with his legs to help his receivers get separation.
neil: For what it’s worth, his top three targets from last year are exactly the same as this year — Andrews, Marquise Brown, Willie Snead, in that order. But last year, Lamar had a 9.0 percent TD rate and 5.4 percent sack rate. Those have basically flipped around this year: 5.4 percent TDs, 8.0 percent sacks.
sara.ziegler: I guess it’s hard for me to write off this team just yet. I still think the Ravens can do some damage in the playoffs, if they can put the pieces together like we’ve seen them do in the past.
Salfino: Right now they are out of the playoffs, right? And they face Pittsburgh on Thursday on the road? Yikes.
sara.ziegler: They’re tied for that seventh slot right now. But they still have games against the Cowboys, Browns, Jaguars, Giants and Bengals, so…
Salfino: Good point. They’re behind in tiebreakers now, but they’ll win at least four of those games, I have to believe.
neil: The Steelers being as good as they are is also a problem for Baltimore. The Ravens have almost no chance of winning the division now and must get in via wild card.
sara.ziegler: Would we even be that surprised to see them beat the Steelers this week? The Ravens really should have won their first matchup.
Salfino: I’d be surprised. Not shocked though.
joshua.hermsmeyer: If only they could rely on their defense, smh.
sara.ziegler: Let’s talk about the other great overtime game on Sunday, in which the Indianapolis Colts beat the Green Bay Packers. It wasn’t always pretty: Indy’s last series in regulation was just about a textbook example of how to throw away a game. The Colts were flagged six times in 30 seconds!
But I was impressed by the Colts defense against an obviously very good Aaron Rodgers and company.
neil: Nice comeback win for Old Man Rivers, too.
Salfino: It was a weird game in that the Packers had no business being up by 14 points, but they were — and usually that’s “Murder, She Wrote” for their opponents.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Green Bay’s TD putting them up 28-14 to end the half off a pass interference call had to have them feeling like they had this game in the bag. The Packers scored just 3 points in the second half, but it was also a pretty spectacular collapse by the Green Bay defense.
sara.ziegler: And then Indy had to feel like they had it sewn up with two minutes left, after getting a first down on fourth-and-long. So maybe it’s right that the game went to overtime after all.
Salfino: I feel like I’m underrating the Colts’ chances. They outpass their opponents (according to net yards per attempt) pretty significantly.
neil: They seem to be gaining steam, with that convincing win over Tennessee and now this comeback against Green Bay. Rivers didn’t look great to start the season, but he has been playing better of late as well.
Salfino: They need someone that defenses need to worry about. I think rookie Michael Pittman Jr. could be that guy, but they threw him only three passes on Sunday. (He caught all three, for 66 yards.)
sara.ziegler: I’m still not sure that Rivers can or should be trusted.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I think Rivers’s play probably explains it. Even the venerable Nick Saban has admitted that offense beats defense. Heady times.
Salfino: I see no difference now between Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger besides Roethlisberger’s ridiculous receiving talent.
By the way …
“TAY-SOM, TAY-SOM TAY-SOM!”
sara.ziegler: Ugh
Salfino: How about some Tay?
neil: Smh
Salfino: I love it when all of fantasy Twitter has to eat crow.
joshua.hermsmeyer: I think we need to take a *slightly* longer view here, Mike. Happy for Sean Payton and the Saints on their win though.
Salfino: I’m workshopping “The Saints are better with Hill,” Josh.
neil: On the one hand, it’s one game, and the Falcons are nobody’s idea of a dominating defense. But maybe that Payton guy also knows a little about football, idk.
Salfino: Seriously, I’m seeing the 1990 Giants with Drew Brees as Phil Simms and Hill as Jeff Hostetler.
joshua.hermsmeyer: If Taysom had a porn ‘stache, there would be no stopping him.
Salfino: Brees has not been that good anymore, I think we all agree. Hill was hyper-efficient on Sunday and threw the ball great. He provides another dimension with his running. And like Simms in 1990, we have no idea when Brees will be back. (Eleven broken ribs seems bad.)
neil: I love that you are legitimately trying to make this a thing.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Hill skipped a short pass in the flat yesterday. There’s still some work to do.
neil: Yeah. Hill’s QBR in that one revelatory game was 14 points lower than Brees’s mark for the season. But it WAS much higher than Jameis’s!
Salfino: I hated gimmicky Taysom, but this is real now. Michael Thomas also dropped a perfect pass, so we’re even. Hill clearly threw the ball better than anyone had a right to believe. And he passed Walter Payton on the all-time passing list!
neil: Sara and I were stunned to learn that, before Sunday, Walter Payton had nearly twice as many career pass attempts as Taysom Hill.
Salfino: We laughed when Payton compared rookie Alvin Kamara to Marshall Faulk, and we’re laughing at Payton when he compares Hill to Steve Young. But Payton is laughing last.
joshua.hermsmeyer: Payton is a real one.
sara.ziegler: LOLOL
Salfino: I said last week that Payton is a bored genius, like when peak Elvis Costello recorded a country-western album of cover songs. It was good! Let Payton have fun.
neil: idk, I think the Saints will be “Almost Blue” with Taysom at some point, and they will “Get Happy” when Brees returns.
We have reached my Elvis Costello reference quota for the day.
Salfino: Neil, you are a god, officially.
neil: I am only the humble Delivery Man.
Salfino: The King of America!
Check out our latest NFL predictions.