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Politics Podcast: Election Day 2017

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Just how bad is the political environment for President Trump and Republicans? We’ll get a lot of evidence one way or the other on Tuesday, as Virginia and New Jersey hold gubernatorial elections and voters go to the polls all over the country for other local races and measures.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team discusses which races to watch, how those races have been shaped by national politics and what they say about the parties’ shifting priorities. The crew also considers an ongoing debate about whether voter ID laws have worked to suppress turnout among likely Democratic voters around the country.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button 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 publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. 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.

What Will Virginia And New Jersey Tell Us About Trump?

No offense to the 8.4 million people who live there, but I really don’t care who the governor of Virginia is. I don’t care much about New Jersey’s either.1 I do care a lot about national politics, however, so I’m interested in what next Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey will tell us about the national political environment. Should a Republican win in Virginia — where polls have been inconsistent but show only a 3 or 4-percentage-point lead for Democrat Ralph Northam, on average — be cause for Democratic panic? Should Democrats get any credit for a double-digit win in New Jersey (as seems likely based on polls there), or would that just be par for the course?

These questions are tricky. On the one hand, one needs to be careful about finding national lessons in state and local elections (including gubernatorial races). The relationship between local and national politics can be rough: Consider that Massachusetts and Maryland, which are reliably blue in presidential elections, have Republican governors right now, while solidly red Louisiana and Montana have Democratic ones.

On the other hand, while individual governors’ races can be quirky, gubernatorial races on the whole usually do a fairly good job of reflecting the national environment. For example, Republicans turned in excellent performances in gubernatorial races in 2010 and 2014, when they also had great midterm wave years. Democrats did the same in 2006.

In theory, that dynamic should carry over to this year. Because the overall political environment is seemingly good for Democrats, they should expect to perform well in most governors races this year and next, outside of extremely red states. If they don’t, it will be reasonable to ask whether the results in particular states were flukes — or instead, whether the national political climate wasn’t as toxic for President Trump and Republicans as it had seemed.

Let’s look at some data to see how gubernatorial races have behaved historically. I’ve compiled a database of all gubernatorial races since 2001 in which there was no incumbent running (both Virginia and New Jersey are open-seat races this year), excluding races where a third-party candidate finished first or second, or when multiple candidates from the same party appeared on the ballot together.2 This works out to a total of 90 elections.

In those elections, there was a comparatively poor relationship between gubernatorial and presidential voting. In the chart below, I’ve compared the FiveThirtyEight version of a state’s partisan voting index (PVI) — how it voted in the previous two presidential elections, relative to the national average3 — to the margin of victory or defeat for the Republican candidate in open-seat gubernatorial races. A state’s PVI mispredicted the gubernatorial result in 36 of 90 cases, meaning that a state that leans Democratic in presidential elections voted Republican for governor, or vice versa, 40 percent of the time. There certainly is some correlation,4 but it’s rough. The relationship would be much stronger if you’d run the same analysis between presidential races and congressional races instead.

On the other hand, as I mentioned, gubernatorial races usually do a pretty good job of reflecting the national mood when you aggregate enough of them together. In 2006, for example, Democrats won the average open-seat gubernatorial race by almost 10 percentage points, close to their 8-point victory in the total popular vote for the U.S. House that year. Four years later, in 2010, it was Republicans’ turn for a wave. They won the average open-seat gubernatorial race by 8 points, similar to their 7-point margin in the House popular vote.

Gubernatorial races can get swept up in political waves




YEAR
NO. OF OPEN SEAT RACES*
AVG. PARTISAN MARGIN




2016
7
R +7.7

–



2014
8
R +6.6

–



2012
5
D +0.5

–



2010
21
R +8.0

–



2006
10
D +9.9

–



2004
5
D +2.9

–



2002
20
R +1.2

–

* Excluding races where an independent candidate finished first or second, or when multiple candidates from the same party appeared on the ballot together.

Source: Dave Leip’s U.S. Election Atlas

So what does that mean for Virginia and New Jersey? Using these past gubernatorial races, I built a regression model to estimate gubernatorial results based on the generic congressional ballot — which currently favors Democrats by 9 percentage points according to our tracker — and a state’s PVI. You can think of this as a “fundamentals”-based prediction: That is, what you’d think “should” happen in each race based only on its partisan lean and the overall political environment, without looking at who’s running or the polls in each state.

That regression model says that Democrats “should” win by 9 points in Virginia, and by 13 points in New Jersey, given that the generic ballot suggests we’re in a strongly Democratic-leaning environment and that both states are bluer than the national average (New Jersey more so than Virginia). In New Jersey, that projection pretty closely matches the polling average, which has Democrat Phil Murphy ahead of Republican Kim Guadagno by 15 to 16 percentage points. Virginia is somewhat tighter than the fundamentals project, however, with Northam leading Republican Ed Gillespie by 3 to 4 points.

But note that this fundamentals-based projection isn’t very precise: Historically, it’s missed the final result in each state by an average of about 10 points.5 To put it another way, there’s a lot of room for error: Republicans would still win under these conditions in Virginia 23 percent of the time, and in New Jersey, 14 percent of the time, despite their seeming disadvantages. Individual gubernatorial races just aren’t all that predictable.

Therefore, the challenge of interpreting Tuesday’s results is that there aren’t many of them. While gubernatorial races can tell you a lot once you have enough examples, only two states are voting on Tuesday — and individual gubernatorial races can be quirky. Still, even accounting for the low predictability of gubernatorial races and the wide spread in the polls in Virginia — which have ranged from showing a 17-point Northam lead to an 8-point Gillespie lead — Democrats probably ought to be winning both races. If Northam loses, it will be hard to know whether that says something about Northam and about Virginia — or instead about the national political environment. But either way, it won’t be a great sign for Democrats.

At the same time, if Northam wins, I don’t think analysts should be going out of their way to parse the meaning of his margin of victory (unless perhaps it’s very close or a massive blowout). Races for governor are a noisy signal, and anything from about a 2-point Northam win to a 15-point win would qualify as a pretty “normal” result under the circumstances.

New Jersey shouldn’t be overlooked, either. Gubernatorial races are rarely “gimmes,” so Democrats probably should get some credit for a win there, provided that it comes by a solid margin like the one polls project. New Jersey isn’t the best data point — you’d rather have a state where the candidates were starting off with more of a blank slate and not one where the outgoing Republican governor, Chris Christie, was so historically unpopular. (Guadagno is Christie’s lieutenant governor.) Nonetheless, political analysts and reporters will surely go out of their way to draw implications from Virginia, despite it being just one data point. Do yourself a favor and double the sample size by incorporating New Jersey into the story. That should put your own Wednesday morning narrative on slightly firmer ground.

Are Anti-Trump Republicans Really Anti-Trump?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Today’s topic: If you’re a Republican elected official, what qualifies you as anti-Trump?

Why are we talking about this? Well, there are plenty of GOP senators — Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, etc. — who have been critical of the president but haven’t necessarily done much about it legislatively. So many people on the left call the whole narrative that they’re standing up to Trump BS.

So, to start us off: How much do you think these elected Republicans are doing to restrain Trump?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Well, they weren’t doing very much at first. Then more signs of resistance emerged over the summer.

In some ways, we’re still waiting for the pivotal tests, though.

What if Trump fires special counsel Bob Mueller, who’s investigating his campaign and potential Russian collusion? What if he pardons Jared Kushner? What if he tries to appoint to his Cabinet someone who’s an obvious hack?

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): The Russia sanctions bill was significant in that Congress passed it despite administration objections. The hearing with fired FBI Director James Comey was too. So was prominent GOP senators basically all-but-ordering the president not to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Republicans, particularly in the Senate, are doing more to resist Trump than the liberal conventional wisdom seems to hold.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Yeah, you are seeing some more outward signs of resistance. You have both Flake and Corker not running for re-election in order, it seems, to be able to critique Trump to their fullest ability. And just this week, McCain put out this tweet:

I believe in Americans and the American dream, but it’s time we wake up. pic.twitter.com/QmSIqP0TEs

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) October 30, 2017

Now, do those count? Otherwise, I think the Russia bill was the first step, so I concur with Mr. Bacon.

natesilver: Wait — so Flake and Corker not running for re-election is a sign of resistance?

Not sure I buy that, Enten.

harry: I see it that way. Here’s why: Yes, they didn’t run, probably in part because they thought they might lose. That’s especially the case for Flake. But they could have decided to change course. They could have sucked up to Trump. Instead, they chose not to run and to criticize the president.

perry: If you think Trump will go down as the worst president in modern U.S. history and that he breaks lots of important norms along the way, then they are still not doing nearly enough. If you grade them based on their deep desire to 1. get re-elected, 2. please the Fox News base, and 3. get tax cuts and conservative judges, then the level of resistance in the GOP that we’re seeing seems more significant, with Collins/Corker/Flake/McCain at the more resisting end of the spectrum.

harry: I wonder if any of them think Trump is the worst president.

natesilver: Well, Flake was probably going to lose anyway. But Corker is popular enough that he could have stayed in the Senate as a sort of Susan Collins type.

harry: Corker’s numbers slid. I’m not sure he would have won necessarily if he really wanted to critique Trump.

micah: Yeah, isn’t the idea that he would have become far more unpopular by speaking out against Trump?

perry: I think many of these Republican senators believe Trump is uniquely terrible. That is what Flake and Corker are getting at: Let’s use our inside voices outside. If he is terrible, let’s tell people.

natesilver: Corker might have lost. But now you’re almost guaranteed to have someone more Trump-friendly in that Senate seat.

micah: So much of this comes down to how big of a threat you think the president is, right? If you’re on the left and you see Trump as a clear and present danger, then of course you’d be underwhelmed by the anti-Trumpiness of the GOP.

perry: Right.

micah: But let me introduce another element here …

THE FIVETHIRTYEIGHT TRUMP SCORE!!!!

Nate, can you give the people a snappy description of what this is?

natesilver: It’s how often a member of Congress votes the way that Trump wants.

That’s it. It’s pretty simple. It’s a measure of roll-call votes.

micah: So people have been throwing around Flake’s and McCain’s and Corker’s Trump scores — which are all very high — as evidence that their criticism of Trump is hollow.

That seems silly to me, but what do you all think?

natesilver: It’s certainly possible that you could agree with Trump on his legislative priorities but also think he’s a danger to the Republic. In that case, you might have a high Trump score, since most of what’s reflected in it is legislation.

harry: Can I just note that there’s nothing new about measures like the Trump score? People have been tracking stuff like this for years. What’s different here is that we’re doing it in real time. It’s more about the interpretation that some people are taking.

natesilver: Yeah. We’re doing it in real time. And our scores are more transparent — it’s more obvious what they mean.

perry: Micah and I have had this debate a lot internally. So we can have it publicly now.

I appreciate the work of my colleagues in creating this tool. And it explains some things really well. But I see these liberals saying, “Well, Trump is with Flake 90 percent of the time.” Flake wrote a book trashing Trump. Trump wanted Flake out of the Senate. Something is not being captured there.

And the other challenge is that Trump is often very disengaged from the legislative process. So the things that get voted on are really the Paul Ryan-Mitch McConnell priorities, or put differently, the Koch brothers agenda. I know why we are calling it a Trump score, but I at times worry that that communicates to the audience that Trump has defined priorities on a lot of legislation, some of which I doubt he knows exist.

natesilver: I don’t know. It’s a tool. Like any tool, it can be misused.

micah: But Perry has outlined the fairest criticism.

But like … don’t the Trump scores simply show that Trump hasn’t pushed an agenda distinct from normal GOP orthodoxy?

perry: Right.

I think people are misusing/misunderstanding the tool.

micah: We could rename it the “GOP Congress-Trump Legislative Agreement Score.”

natesilver: I mean, the scores show that the Republican agenda and the Trump agenda have become pretty well aligned.

The lowest Trump score among Republicans (Collins at 81 percent) is much higher than the highest Trump score among Democrats (Joe Manchin at 54 percent).

harry: Also, the Republican senators with the lowest Trump scores aren’t surprising; they tend to be the senators widely recognized as the most anti-Trump: Collins, Rand Paul, McCain, Corker, etc.

natesilver: Yeah, it does a pretty decent job.

GOP senators by Trump score





SENATOR
STATE
TRUMP SCORE




1
Roy Blunt
Missouri
96.2%


2
John Boozman
Arkansas
96.2


3
Bill Cassidy
Louisiana
96.2


4
Thad Cochran
Mississippi
96.2


5
John Cornyn
Texas
96.2


6
Orrin Hatch
Utah
96.2


7
John Hoeven
North Dakota
96.2


8
Pat Roberts
Kansas
96.2


9
Mike Rounds
South Dakota
96.2


10
John Thune
South Dakota
96.2


11
Thom Tillis
North Carolina
96.2


12
Roger Wicker
Mississippi
96.2


13
Richard Burr
North Carolina
96.1


14
Mitch McConnell
Kentucky
96.1


15
Marco Rubio
Florida
96.1


16
Dan Sullivan
Alaska
95.9


17
Johnny Isakson
Georgia
94.4


18
John Barrasso
Wyoming
94.2


19
Ted Cruz
Texas
94.2


20
Cory Gardner
Colorado
94.2


21
James Inhofe
Oklahoma
94.2


22
Tim Scott
South Carolina
94.2


23
Richard Shelby
Alabama
94.2


24
Shelley Moore Capito
West Virginia
94.1


25
Jerry Moran
Kansas
94.1


26
David Perdue
Georgia
94.1


27
Lamar Alexander
Tennessee
94.0


28
Tom Cotton
Arkansas
92.3


29
Mike Crapo
Idaho
92.3


30
Steve Daines
Montana
92.3


31
Mike Enzi
Wyoming
92.3


32
Joni Ernst
Iowa
92.3


33
Deb Fischer
Nebraska
92.3


34
Chuck Grassley
Iowa
92.3


35
Ron Johnson
Wisconsin
92.3


36
John Kennedy
Louisiana
92.3


37
James Lankford
Oklahoma
92.3


38
Rob Portman
Ohio
92.3


39
Todd Young
Indiana
92.3


40
Dean Heller
Nevada
90.4


41
Mike Lee
Utah
90.4


42
James Risch
Idaho
90.4


43
Ben Sasse
Nebraska
90.2


44
Pat Toomey
Pennsylvania
90.2


45
Jeff Flake
Arizona
90.0


46
Luther Strange
Alabama
90.0


47
Lindsey Graham
South Carolina
88.5


48
Bob Corker
Tennessee
86.3


49
Lisa Murkowski
Alaska
86.3


50
John McCain
Arizona
84.0


51
Rand Paul
Kentucky
84.0


52
Susan Collins
Maine
80.8

perry: Yeah, that actually is perfect in capturing the anti-Trump wing in the Senate. Although, it is strange that Luther Strange is there.

But broader point: I don’t expect someone like Flake, who is quite conservative, to vote against tax cuts because Trump supports them.

natesilver: Right, but it’s reasonable to point out that someone like Collins — despite occasionally disagreeing with Trump, including on important issues — is still quite an asset to him, compared with a Democrat from Maine.

micah: Well, this gets us back to how you judge Republican resistiness — there are people who think Trump is such a threat to the nation that Republicans should be blocking appointments/legislation even if they support them on substance. There are people who think they should switch parties! If you subscribe to that theory, then the Trump score does count as evidence that the McCains and Flakes of the world haven’t done much.

As Nate just said, Collins is still an asset overall.

natesilver: There haven’t been many appointments lately — and Trump has mostly sidestepped making controversial ones.

harry: I mean, these are still Republicans.

perry: This is an interesting question. Tom Price had a bunch of controversial behavior well before he was confirmed as health and human services secretary and well before he resigned after the plane stuff. Should Flake/Corker/McCain have not voted for him? (They did.) Would they do that today?

natesilver: That’s why I’m saying the big tests are still ahead.

harry: What are the big tests? Do we know them yet?

natesilver: Ultimately, some of the resistance will have to come in the form of roll-call votes — like rebuffing his Cabinet nominees or (gulp) even voting to impeach him.

perry: Right, but taxes is the wrong issue on which to judge GOP resistance. Nominations and appointments are right. So are U.S. attorneys, foreign policy appointments, people who could be involved in Russia stuff: Like if Secretary of State Rex Tillerson were to leave and Trump wanted to appoint an even more pro-Russia person. Or if his U.S. attorney appointment in New York seems to be someone with obvious ties to Trump who won’t prosecute crimes by Trump allies.

natesilver: Congress could pass legislation that would make it more difficult to fire Mueller. The fact that they haven’t yet is a good point for the critics.

micah: Or Congress could pass laws aimed at curbing Trump’s potential corruption/conflict of interest stuff.

perry: Yes.

harry: Of course, a number of GOP senators have also said that Trump shouldn’t fire Mueller.

perry: Like this is a serious idea: Republicans should join with Democrats to block any U.S. attorney nominee who Trump has personally met with.

And, yeah, the fact that the pro-Mueller bills have not moved is telling.

natesilver: People are also within their rights to be skeptical of Republicans standing up to Trump based on how the 2016 primaries went down. Trump, famously, received very few endorsements from Republican elected officials. But as we learned, there’s a big difference between failing to endorse and actually resisting someone.

harry: By the way, Flake has not signed onto a bill that would make it harder for Trump to fire Mueller.

micah: I think what we’re seeing is a number of Republican senators who are anti-Trump on non-policy issues (protecting Mueller/rule of law/etc.) and pro-Trump on policy (which is basically just pro-GOP). … BUT they’re active on the policy things and passive on the non-policy things.

That’s the key: active vs. passive.

natesilver: Right. There’s been an impressive amount of passive resistance to Trump and not (yet) very much active resistance.

perry: I guess it’s somewhat hard to be active on non-policy things, since Congress doesn’t really vote on those, right?

micah: Couldn’t they, though?

perry: Is active resistance politically possible in the Republican Party of today?

Politicians perhaps should do things that are political risks. But they almost never do.

micah: That’s a hard question to answer, Perry. My first instinct is “no.”

But maybe that’s simply a case of expectations.

What would happen if every Republican senator up for re-election in 2018 simultaneously came out and broke with Trump in a sustained way?

perry: Well, on Russia sanctions it happened.

He whined, signed the bill and the party people won the fight.

If every senator up for re-election did that, they would all increase their chances of losing to a Steve-Bannon-backed candidate. There is no safety in numbers when the number is fairly small — only six Senate Republicans are up in 2018 (not counting Flake, Corker or the Alabama special election). If every House Republican did that, that would be different. It would be something like 240 people.

harry: I think we’re seeing a major resistance to resisting Trump in that fashion. Look what’s happening in the Alabama Senate race. Roy Moore has said a lot of stuff outside the mainstream, and he was welcomed into Washington with open arms before he’s even won the seat. The fear of losing is really, really powerful. Distancing themselves from that part of the Republican base is not tenable because it would mean, in their mind, losing the election.

perry: A good test will be if Mitt Romney ever says a negative thing about Trump again, since he is rumored to be considering a Senate run in Utah if Orrin Hatch retires.

micah: Clare is on vacation, but in her honor I feel compelled to say …

MITT!!!!!

Anyway, give me a little more detail on what we would see the key tests being for Republicans in Congress.

natesilver: I continue to think the three nuclear-level events are:

Trump firing Mueller.
Trump pardoning people in his inner circle.
Mueller returning with an obstruction of justice finding or something equally severe against Trump.

micah: Let’s talk short of nuclear-level, though.

What would the ramp-up tests be?

natesilver: Part of the problem is that there aren’t that many ramp-up tests.

micah: Interesting!

harry: Again, what are you breaking with Trump on? The GOP Congress and Trump agree on most major policy questions — hence those high Trump scores.

micah: The Federal Reserve chair has to be confirmed by the Senate, right?

Other appointments?

And what about investigations?

Proactive anti-corruption laws?

Seems like there are a lot of options?

harry: I mean, if they started passing those anti-corruption laws, that would be a sign of something.

natesilver: If Trump tried to appoint, say, Rudy Giuliani to something, that would be interesting. But Trump has actually played it pretty carefully on appointments so far.

perry: Giuliani. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

I think it will be fairly hard to have clear votes on things because McConnell will signal to the White House when the votes are there and when they’re not.

micah: You think the Senate would balk at Christie?

perry: Let’s not debate Christie. He will not be nominated.

micah: Lol.

natesilver: Yeah, and that’s another flaw with roll-call measures — they don’t measure things that never get to the floor.

harry: Why the hate toward Mr. 14 Percent Approval? (Also known as Chris Christie.)

natesilver: BTW, Congress could be doing a lot more on its own to investigate Trump, and they could make more of those investigations public.

micah: Yeah, that would qualify as a ramp-up test to me.

natesilver: Mueller — and the media — have devoted a lot of resources to investigating Trump, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that Congress couldn’t ramp up its investigations too.

perry: And that is an important place where Congress is not pushing back on Trump.

In fact, Republicans in Congress have moved in a pro-Trump, anti-Hillary Clinton direction in terms of investigations.

harry: That’s why I think you said to watch Richard Burr, right, Perry? To watch some of those investigations.

perry: GOP super-partisans have basically captured all of the committees but Burr’s. That’s important.

micah: OK, final question: Is it accurate to call Collins, Flake, Corker, McCain or any other Senate Republican “anti-Trump”?

perry: I call them Trump-skeptical. Maybe that’s cautious, but it’s more accurate, I think.

micah: I like that terminology.

harry: My problem with this is it’s difficult to call someone anti-Trump when they are agreeing with him a lot on policy. I would call some of them Trump-headaches. I know, lame phrase.

natesilver: You could call them “anti-Trump-curious.”

micah: lol

perry: Jennifer Rubin and Bill Kristol are anti-Trump. I can’t think of a Republican member of Congress who is really anti-Trump.

They are anti-Trumpism.

If we think of Trumpism as being more about nationalism, white identity politics, norms-bashing, institution-breaking, media-slamming, then Flake, Corker, etc., are against that. But not really Trump policies.

harry: For an anti-Trumper, the disagreements with Trump’s behavior, etc., have to override policy agreement. I don’t think we see that yet in Congress.

micah: Yeah, the passive vs. active seems like the dividing line.

Let’s call them “passively anti-Trump curious.”

Politics Podcast: Mueller’s First Strike

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The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast crew discusses the first round of indictments as part of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and potential collusion with President Trump’s campaign.

Paul Manafort, who served as chairman of Trump’s campaign, and Manafort’s business associate Rick Gates surrendered themselves to authorities on Monday. Documents were also made public Monday showing that a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contact with a Russian professor with ties to Kremlin officials.

The team puts the investigation into historical context and weighs the ramifications for the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button 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 publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. 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.

 

Where Is The Trump Presidency Headed?

In this week’s politics chat, we check back in on the trajectory of President Trump’s presidency. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Welcome, all! We’re lucky to have our Washington editor, Hilary Krieger, joining us!

Our topic: “14 Versions Of Trump’s Presidency, From #MAGA To Impeachment”

Nate wrote this article after Trump’s inauguration; it lays out 14 possible tracks the administration could take. We’ll go through each scenario, and everyone has to rank it on a scale from 1 (has become much less likely since Trump was sworn in) to 10 (has become much more likely since Trump was sworn in).

You have to factor in where things stand now and where they might be headed. Everyone got that?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): Shouldn’t the scale be 0 to 10?

micah: omg. Stop.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): 11 options is too many.

hilary.krieger (Hilary Krieger, Washington editor): But 14 versions is totally manageable.

harry: I like even numbers.

micah: The idea here is to periodically take a step back and view the Trump era in aggregate. We last checked in on this back in May, if you remember.

OK …

No. 1: Trump keeps on Trumpin’ and the country remains evenly divided. In this scenario, Trump continues to implement his campaign-trail agenda. He still rants on Twitter every morning and picks unnecessary fights, although (perhaps it’s already too late for this?) he mostly avoids major entanglements with foreign leaders that could really get him into trouble. And it … sort of works. The press regularly predicts Trump’s demise, but difficult periods are followed by comparatively successful ones and he benefits from relatively low expectations. At the same time, he doesn’t win over many new converts. Still, Trump’s base of 40 to 45 percent of the country sticks with him.

natesilver: 6.

harry: 3.5. Trump’s job approval rating has been below 40 percent since mid-May.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): 5.

hilary.krieger: 7.

harry: Fairly wide disagreement here.

micah: Yeah, that’s surprising.

perry: Did Micah give a number?

micah: I’m the moderator!

natesilver: That’s a cop-out! What’s your number?

micah: I’ll go with a 4.

The Trump administration, were it a boat, has sorta oscillated between rotted-out hull/taking on water and barnacle-covered-but-very-much-afloat. This scenario is sorta at the better end of that range.

natesilver: It’s worth pointing out that Trump’s approval ratings are in about the same place that they were back in May, after he fired FBI Director James Comey. Although they’ve fluctuated up and down a couple of times since then. But the case for “low-but-steady approval rating” is a bit stronger than it was a couple of months ago.

The tricky thing is that low-but-steady might be OK for Trump if low means 42 or 43 percent, but less so if it means 37 or 38 or 39 percent.

hilary.krieger: Yeah, and that’s why I gave this version a high number: It tracks with what’s happened so far and because for all of Trump’s low approval ratings, Republican primary candidates don’t seem to be running away from him.

natesilver: The spirit of this scenario holds up pretty well, but maybe not so much the letter of it (which envisioned an approval rating in the low 40s instead of high 30s).

harry: We’ve found that Trump has lost some of his base, so I don’t see how we can say his base sticking with him has become more likely. Granted, the Twitter part is still very true.

perry: If the GOP can pass a tax cut — that’s a big, big if — Trump will hold a signing ceremony and tout the bill as a big win. It’ll get lots of positive media coverage. And maybe he can get to 41 to 43 percent and there we are. I’m also not as convinced as I was three months ago that Russia will be a huge scandal that implicates Trump personally when it is over.

micah: I’m closer to where Harry is.

But this gets us a bit into the second scenario …

No. 2. Trump gradually (or not-so-gradually) enters a death spiral. Liberals and other Trump adversaries might overrate the likelihood of this scenario … His problems could be self-reinforcing as issues pile on top of one another and public opinion turns against him, especially if the more coolheaded and competent advisers and Cabinet members flee the White House as Trump begins to falter. In this scenario, Trump’s approval ratings wouldn’t necessarily fall off a cliff — his base would give him a mulligan or two — but they would move slowly and inexorably downward, as happened to George W. Bush during his last two years in office.

perry: 9.

hilary.krieger: 7.5.

natesilver: 6.5.

harry: Greater than 5, less than 10. I agree with Hilary: 7.5.

Agreement!

micah: Hmmm …

I’ll go 7.

perry: I guess I feel like this is happening, even if it’s not more likely than it was in February. Are we debating if this is happening or if this is a shift from expectations?

micah: A combo.

natesilver: Yeah, we’re sort of splitting the uprights between the first two scenarios so far. If I had to lean toward one, I’d go with No. 2 over No. 1. Narratively, it holds up better: “His problems could be self-reinforcing as issues pile on top of one another and public opinion turns against him” sounds fairly prescient.

perry: Right.

micah: See, maybe Perry is right that this is happening — it’s just a very sloooooow process.

natesilver: There haven’t been very many Russia/Mueller revelations lately, and, presumably there eventually will be. I’d like to see what happens when that’s dropped into Trump’s pile.

Sen. Bob Corker’s comments about Trump’s mental fitness are also relevant here, in terms of problems piling up.

harry: In order to be convinced of No. 2, I’d want to see Trump’s approval rating at least as low as 35 percent or so by December. I’d want to see a continual decline of his floor, even if his rating bounces up and down a bit.

natesilver: It’s worth noting that for past presidents, the tendency is for approval ratings to revert to a mean of about 40 to 50 percent — more like scenario No. 1 than scenario No. 2. So in some ways, betting heavily on No. 2 is betting on the case that Trump is an outlier/exception.

hilary.krieger: That’s why I’m just going with .5 spread between the two scenarios.

natesilver: Yeah, I think both cases are pretty reasonable.

micah:

No. 3. Trump keeps rewriting the political rules and gradually becomes more popular. Trump won the presidency despite being fairly unpopular, and he remains fairly unpopular now. Nonetheless, what he’s accomplished is impressive, especially given the long odds that many people (including yours truly) gave Trump at the start. Maybe the guy is pretty good at politics? One can imagine various scenarios where Trump’s default approach to politics turns out to be a winning one over the long run, even if it leads to its fair share of rocky moments.

harry: 1.5.

micah: 3.

perry: 3.

natesilver: 2.5.

hilary.krieger: 1.5 (since Harry went with my number last time).

harry: AWWWWWW

Politics Podcast: Steve Bannon’s War Against The GOP

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Former White House chief strategist Steven Bannon declared “war” on the GOP establishment at the conservative Values Voter Summit on Saturday. Bannon is reportedly planning to back a slate of primary challengers to incumbent Republican senators next year.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team considers which senators might be most at risk from a primary challenger and how Bannon’s influence could affect the 2018 midterms overall. The crew also discusses the political impact of President Trump’s decision to halt subsidies that help low-income people pay for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button 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 publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. 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.

2017-18 NBA Predictions

UPDATED SEP. 14, 2017 AT 1:50 PM

2017-18 NBA PredictionsBased on “CARM-Elo,” a mix of team Elo ratings and our CARMELO player projections. Updated after every game.

More NBA:  CARMELO projections   Every team’s Elo history

StandingsGames

AVG. SIMULATED SEASON
PLAYOFF CHANCES





ELO
CARM-ELO
1-WEEK CHANGE

TEAM
CONFERENCE
RECORD
POINT DIFF/G
MAKE PLAYOFFS
TOP SEED
WIN TITLE




1707
1741
-88

Warriors1-2
West
61-21
+8.1
>99%
53%
30%


1618
1641
-16

Cavaliers2-1
East
56-26
+6.3
98%
47%
14%


1534
1612
+48

Timberwolves2-0
West
52-30
+4.8
88%
10%
6%


1530
1608
+9

Thunder1-0
West
51-31
+4.1
83%
8%
6%


1621
1605
+24

Clippers1-0
West
50-32
+4.3
83%
7%
5%


1597
1596
+43

Rockets2-1
West
50-32
+4.3
82%
7%
5%


1526
1593
-10

Raptors1-1
East
50-32
+3.6
93%
18%
7%


1586
1591
-26

Spurs0-1
West
48-34
+2.8
76%
5%
4%


1560
1582
-16

Jazz1-1
West
49-33
+2.7
78%
5%
5%


1550
1577
+11

Trail Blazers1-1
West
47-35
+2.7
72%
4%
3%


1507
1548
+12

Bulls1-0
East
47-35
+2.0
84%
11%
3%


1552
1539
+81

Hawks2-0
East
46-36
+2.5
85%
10%
3%


1467
1509
+44

Magic2-1
East
42-40
+1.2
72%
4%
2%


1475
1503
+31

Mavericks1-2
West
39-43
-0.3
36%




1449
1494
-40

Hornets1-1
East
41-41
-0.4
66%
3%
1%


1578
1490
+21

Wizards2-0
East
40-42
+0.2
63%
3%



1524
1487
+37

Grizzlies2-0
West
39-43
-0.5
36%




1531
1480
-6

Nuggets0-1
West
39-43
-0.8
35%




1454
1471
-91

Celtics0-3
East
37-45
-2.6
48%




1533
1450
+43

Bucks1-1
East
37-45
-1.4
46%
1%



1426
1448
-30

Pistons0-2
East
36-46
-2.2
41%




1395
1436
-9

Knicks0-1
East
34-48
-2.9
35%




1417
1434
-15

Kings1-1
West
33-49
-3.9
14%




1461
1428
-24

Pelicans0-2
West
31-51
-4.2
10%




1465
1417
-31

Pacers0-1
East
32-50
-3.7
25%




1511
1398
-18

Heat0-1
East
31-51
-4.4
21%




1374
1396
-14

Suns1-1
West
29-53
-4.6
6%




1385
1382
+3

76ers1-2
East
29-53
-4.9
16%




1391
1353
+3

Lakers1-1
West
26-56
-6.9
2%




1421
1334
+24

Nets1-0
East
25-57
-6.2
6%

Forecast fromTodaySept. 14 (preseason)

How this works: This forecast is based on 50,000 simulations of the season and accounts for team fatigue, travel distance to games, and home courts with higher altitudes. Elo ratings are a measure of team strength based on head-to-head results and quality of opponent, while our CARMELO projections estimate a player’s future performance based on the trajectory of other, similar NBA players. Our CARM-Elo ratings, which power the forecast model, blend these two metrics to measure a team’s quality based on both its game results and its roster. Full methodology »

By Jay Boice, Ella Koeze and Nate Silver. Additional contributions from Neil Paine. Illustration by Elias Stein.

RELATED STORIES

The Timberwolves Might Have Too Many Stars LeBron And The Cavs Could Make Dwyane Wade Young Again How Will Porzingis And The Knicks Cope With Life After Melo? Carmelo Anthony Makes The Thunder Whole The Celtics Didn’t Mortgage Their Future — They Insured It

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About Nielsen Measurement

Why The Warriors And Cavs Are Still Big Favorites

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers are favorites to win their respective conferences and reach the NBA Finals.

That’s according to FiveThirtyEight’s “CARM-Elo” projections, which we’ve just launched for the 2017-18 NBA season. The Warriors and Cavs project to be the best regular-season teams in their respective conferences, although the Houston Rockets and the Oklahoma City Thunder — and perhaps the San Antonio Spurs — could represent formidable rivals for the Warriors in the West. Cleveland has less competition in the East. (Our projections are bearish on the Boston Celtics.) But Cleveland and Golden State could have an even larger advantage in the postseason.

Apart from one new wrinkle, our methodology for making these projections is essentially the same as it has been for the past two seasons. So I’ll spend the bulk of time here discussing what has changed. The new wrinkle: Our forecasts account for the amount of playoff experience on each team’s roster. Throughout NBA history, teams with extensive playoff experience have often found a higher “gear” in the playoffs. Put more precisely, they have a tendency to win more playoff games than you’d expect from their regular-season performance. This group of teams includes the Cavs, a team that our forecasts have often underrated once the playoffs began — and that won 12 of its first 13 playoff games last year after a mediocre regular season.

Indeed, it’s extremely rare for teams without at least an average amount of playoff experience to win the NBA title. We calculate a team’s playoff experience by averaging the number1 of career playoff minutes played2 for each player on its roster, weighted by the number of minutes the player played for the team in the regular season.3 (Teams don’t get any credit for signing a playoff-experienced veteran if they never play him.) For instance, last season’s NBA champions, the Warriors, entered the playoffs with a weighted average of 1,966 career playoff minutes, which ranked third in the league after Cleveland and San Antonio. By contrast, the Portland Trail Blazers — the Warriors’ first-round opponents — averaged just 493 minutes of playoff experience.

Each of the past 36 NBA champions have ranked in the top half of their respective leagues in playoff experience. So have 62 out of the past 66 champions; the lone exceptions were the 1980-81 and 1956-57 Boston Celtics, the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers and the 1955-56 Philadelphia Warriors.

NBA champs almost always have a lot of playoff experience




SEASON
CHAMPIONS
AVG. PLAYOFF EXPERIENCE*
LEAGUE RANK




2016-17
Golden State Warriors
1,966
3
of
30


2015-16
Cleveland Cavaliers
1,907
2
of
30


2014-15
Golden State Warriors
729
15
of
30


2013-14
San Antonio Spurs
2,436
2
of
30


2012-13
Miami Heat
2,778
2
of
30


2011-12
Miami Heat
1,725
5
of
30


2010-11
Dallas Mavericks
2,153
4
of
30


2009-10
Los Angeles Lakers
2,509
1
of
30


2008-09
Los Angeles Lakers
1,976
3
of
30


2007-08
Boston Celtics
866
10
of
30


2006-07
San Antonio Spurs
2,363
1
of
30


2005-06
Miami Heat
1,910
3
of
30


2004-05
San Antonio Spurs
1,481
1
of
30


2003-04
Detroit Pistons
715
13
of
29


2002-03
San Antonio Spurs
1,195
6
of
29


2001-02
Los Angeles Lakers
1,830
3
of
29


2000-01
Los Angeles Lakers
2,258
3
of
29


1999-2000
Los Angeles Lakers
1,729
5
of
29


1998-99
San Antonio Spurs
1,459
6
of
29


1997-98
Chicago Bulls
2,752
1
of
29


1996-97
Chicago Bulls
2,618
1
of
29


1995-96
Chicago Bulls
2,069
1
of
29


1994-95
Houston Rockets
1,392
5
of
27


1993-94
Houston Rockets
783
12
of
27


1992-93
Chicago Bulls
2,134
2
of
27


1991-92
Chicago Bulls
1,684
4
of
27


1990-91
Chicago Bulls
1,245
6
of
27


1989-90
Detroit Pistons
1,834
3
of
27


1988-89
Detroit Pistons
1,491
3
of
25


1987-88
Los Angeles Lakers
2,844
2
of
23


1986-87
Los Angeles Lakers
2,496
2
of
23


1985-86
Boston Celtics
2,204
3
of
23


1984-85
Los Angeles Lakers
2,033
2
of
23


1983-84
Boston Celtics
1,381
3
of
23


1982-83
Philadelphia 76ers
1,778
1
of
23


1981-82
Los Angeles Lakers
1,436
3
of
23


1980-81
Boston Celtics
359
13
of
23


1979-80
Los Angeles Lakers
1,078
5
of
22


1978-79
Seattle Super Sonics
997
7
of
22


1977-78
Washington Bullets
1,383
2
of
22


1976-77
Portland Trail Blazers
152
22
of
22


1975-76
Boston Celtics
2,088
1
of
18


1974-75
Golden State Warriors
598
9
of
18


1973-74
Boston Celtics
1,566
2
of
17


1972-73
New York Knicks
1,809
2
of
17


1971-72
Los Angeles Lakers
2,471
1
of
17


1970-71
Milwaukee Bucks
626
7
of
17


1969-70
New York Knicks
649
6
of
14


1968-69
Boston Celtics
2,805
1
of
14


1967-68
Boston Celtics
2,245
1
of
12


1966-67
Philadelphia 76ers
1,084
3
of
10


1965-66
Boston Celtics
1,714
1
of
9


1964-65
Boston Celtics
1,707
1
of
9


1963-64
Boston Celtics
1,637
1
of
9


1962-63
Boston Celtics
1,689
1
of
9


1961-62
Boston Celtics
1,394
1
of
9


1960-61
Boston Celtics
1,379
1
of
8


1959-60
Boston Celtics
1,105
1
of
8


1958-59
Boston Celtics
849
2
of
8


1957-58
St. Louis Hawks
988
1
of
8


1956-57
Boston Celtics
565
5
of
8


1955-56
Philadelphia Warriors
59
8
of
8


1954-55
Syracuse Nationals
678
3
of
9


1953-54
Minneapolis Lakers
1,062
1
of
9


1952-53
Minneapolis Lakers
852
1
of
10


1951-52
Minneapolis Lakers
492
2
of
10



Show more rows

* Average number of career playoff minutes, weighted by each player’s share of regular season minutes played.

Source: BASKETBALL-REFERENCE.COM

You might be wondering if we’re confusing cause and effect. For instance, Michael Jordan and the 1990s Chicago Bulls were really great; as a result of being great, they made deep playoff runs every year and won six NBA titles, accumulating lots of playoff experience along the way. Playoff success causes playoff experience and not the other way around, you might say.

We’ve found, however, that there’s predictive power in accounting for playoff experience above and beyond other measures of team quality. In particular, playoff experience provides information beyond a team’s Elo rating, which accounts for its record, strength of schedule, and margin of victory or defeat in recent games. In the NBA postseason since 1980, the team with the higher initial Elo rating has won 74 percent of playoff series. But if a team has both a higher Elo rating and much more playoff experience,4 that win percentage shoots up to 86 percent. Conversely, teams with the higher Elo rating but much less playoff experience have won just 52 percent of playoff series. These differences are highly statistically and practically significant.

Based on past research on the topic, we were expecting to see teams reap some benefit from playoff experience, but we were surprised that the effect was this strong. What we’re less sure of is why this effect exists. Playoff basketball is a different beast than regular-season basketball, with much tighter defensive play, among other stylistic changes. It may simply be that nothing predicts playoff success quite like past playoff success. Or it may be that some players really are “clutch” — or can learn to be clutch with experience — and have the psychological skills to thrive under postseason pressure. It’s also possible that teams like LeBron James’s Cavs aren’t overachieving in the playoffs so much as they’re underachieving — or pacing themselves — in the regular season. The NBA season is exhausting, so it’s probably a good idea to pace yourself if your goal is to maximize your chance of a deep playoff run rather than to accumulate gaudy regular-season statistics.

All we know for sure is that playoff basketball is different from regular-season basketball — different enough that it makes sense to maintain what amounts to two sets of ratings for each team, one for the playoffs and one for the regular season. And that’s essentially what our new system does: It keeps two sets of ratings. Below, you’ll find each team’s projected margin of victory or defeat against a league-average opponent in the regular season and the playoffs, respectively.5 Note that the most experienced teams, like the Cavaliers, project to be 2 or even 3 points better per game in the playoffs than in the regular season, which is similar to the magnitude of home-court advantage in the NBA. So when an experienced team plays an inexperienced team in the playoffs, it has the equivalent of home-court advantage — more experienced teams don’t always win by any means, but the breaks tend to go their way.

Cavs are boosted most by accounting for playoff experience





EXPECTED MARGIN OF VICTORY AGAINST A LEAGUE-AVERAGE TEAM




TEAM
REG. SEASON
PLAYOFFS
PLAYOFF EXPERIENCE BONUS




Golden State Warriors
+9.1
+10.8
+1.7

–



Cleveland Cavaliers
+5.0
+7.6
+2.6

–



Houston Rockets
+6.2
+7.0
+0.8

–



Oklahoma City Thunder
+5.2
+6.0
+0.8

–



San Antonio Spurs
+3.5
+5.1
+1.6

–



Minnesota Timberwolves
+3.4
+3.3
-0.1

–



Denver Nuggets
+2.5
+2.2
-0.4

–



Los Angeles Clippers
+2.2
+2.1
-0.1

–



Boston Celtics
+1.6
+1.7
+0.1

–



Utah Jazz
+1.9
+1.7
-0.2

–



Washington Wizards
+1.5
+1.5
+0.0



Charlotte Hornets
+1.4
+1.4
-0.1

–



Toronto Raptors
+1.0
+1.1
+0.2

–



New Orleans Pelicans
+1.1
+0.9
-0.2

–



Milwaukee Bucks
+0.8
+0.4
-0.4

–



Portland Trail Blazers
+0.3
+0.0
-0.3

–



Miami Heat
-0.8
-1.3
-0.5

–



Philadelphia 76ers
-0.7
-1.3
-0.6

–



Memphis Grizzlies
-1.9
-2.0
-0.1

–



Orlando Magic
-1.7
-2.3
-0.6

–



Dallas Mavericks
-3.6
-3.3
+0.3

–



Detroit Pistons
-2.8
-3.3
-0.6

–



Los Angeles Lakers
-2.8
-3.4
-0.6

–



Indiana Pacers
-3.5
-3.9
-0.3

–



Phoenix Suns
-3.5
-4.1
-0.6

–



New York Knicks
-4.2
-4.7
-0.5

–



Brooklyn Nets
-4.4
-5.0
-0.6

–



Chicago Bulls
-5.1
-5.8
-0.7

–



Sacramento Kings
-5.7
-5.8
-0.1

–



Atlanta Hawks
-5.8
-6.3
-0.5

–

Overall, the Warriors — who have the second-most playoff experience after the Cavs — have a 38 percent chance of repeating as NBA champions, according to our projections. If you’re not sure whether that is low or high, consider that the New England Patriots had only an 18 percent chance of repeating as Super Bowl champions at the start of this year’s NFL season, according to our NFL Elo projections. But 38 percent is somewhat lower than where Vegas odds have the Warriors, which imply more like a 45 percent or 50 percent chance that they’ll repeat.6 The competition is a bit deeper this year, and the Warriors are no longer a young team. Still, the playoff bonus helps them — without it, their chances would be 34 percent.

The pecking order behind the Warriors changes as a result of the playoff adjustment. In the playoff version of our ratings, there’s a fairly clear second tier after Golden State that consists of the Cavs, Rockets, Thunder and Spurs. The Cavaliers, who benefit from playing in the Eastern Conference, have the easiest path of this group, with a 21 percent chance of winning the title. (Without the playoff bonus, the Cavs’ chances would be 13 percent.)

After that, there’s a pretty big gap before you get to anyone else. Teams such as the Minnesota Timberwolves might not be that far behind teams like the Spurs and even the Cavs in the regular season. But because of their relative inexperience, they’re less likely to take advantage of their playoff opportunity and make a deep postseason run.

Finally, just some general background on these projections. We call these “CARM-Elo” forecasts because they combine our CARMELO projections for individual players, which are used to set the initial ratings for each team, with our Elo-rating based method of simulating out the rest of the season. As part of this process, we’ve built depth charts for each team to estimate playing time over the course of the regular season. There is unavoidably some guesswork involved in creating the depth charts, which reflect a rough consensus of depth charts from RosterResource.com, ESPN.com and CBS Sports and account for injuries. However, CARMELO projects an expected amount of playing time for each player, and when building our depth charts, we usually stick fairly closely to this recommendation for a team’s rotation players. In fact, our model punishes players who are “forced” to play substantially more than their CARMELO-forecasted playing time by lowering their efficiency rating. For example, Doug McDermott of the New York Knicks is projected to play 20 minutes per game in our depth charts when CARMELO recommends that he only plays 15 minutes per game, so our forecast assumes that he’ll become somewhat less efficient as a result.

Our CARMELO projections themselves underwent some changes earlier this year, which you can read about here. In particular, we’ve switched back to a system that rates players based on a combination of Real Plus-Minus and Box Plus/Minus instead of solely using BPM, as we did last year. Both RPM and BPM have their weaknesses, though: Neither is especially accurate at accounting for defense; both can struggle with players with extremely high usage rates (say, Russell Westbrook or DeMar DeRozan); and they don’t take much advantage of the NBA’s new wealth of player-tracking data. If it sounds like I have strong opinions about this stuff, it’s because I do; we’re working on our own player-rating metric, which we hope to unveil in the relatively near future.

In the meantime, good luck to the 28 NBA teams hoping to knock off the Warriors and the Cavs. It’s never easy, and it won’t be easy this year, especially once the playoffs come around.

Is It Safe To Say Trump Is A Favorite To Win Re-Election?

In this week’s politics chat, we debate what we can say now about the 2020 presidential election. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): Hi, people!

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Hey, friends!

micah: This article, “Trump is on track to win reelection,” sparked some heated debate in the office. Nate thought it was dead-on and brilliant. I didn’t.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): #fakenews

micah: So let’s argue it out! The idea here isn’t to pick apart this one piece, but more to use it as a vehicle to discuss what we know at this very early date about President Trump’s re-election prospects. So, is Trump more likely than not to win re-election in 2020? Or, as I maintain, is that a silly question at this point given how long we have until that campaign and how unpopular Trump is.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): This will be a more interesting conversation after the midterms. I’m a little undecided as to whether or not the article is silly.

harry: It certainly had a provocative headline. And while I agree with Clare that this is a question that is difficult to answer now, many potential candidates are asking it.

natesilver: There might be less than a 50 percent chance that Trump will be president on Jan. 21, 2021. But that’s because he might not run again (or might not complete his first term) — it’s not the same thing as the chances of his winning re-election, conditional upon running.

harry: I think that’s true.

micah: OK, let’s go point by point …

First, Trump knows that gaining the support of a majority of voters in a presidential election is not a requirement; it’s simply an aspiration. In fact, two out of the last three presidents were elected despite losing the popular vote.

harry: This is entirely true. You don’t need to win the popular vote (though doing so obviously increases the chances of winning the Electoral College). And you certainly don’t need to win a majority of the popular vote. Bill Clinton never did. George W. Bush did only once.

natesilver: Wait — elections are determined by the Electoral College?

harry: I know; this shocked me, too.

micah: This is what bothers me so much. Sure, it’s true that you can win the White House without winning the popular vote. But all else being equal, it’s harder! Right?

harry: It is. The question, which we can get to now or later, is whether Trump is in a better position to win the Electoral College without winning the popular vote than the normal politician.

micah: This also presumes a ton about what the coalitions will look like in 2020.

natesilver: Trump had a very significant Electoral College advantage … but the thing is, the Electoral College edge typically isn’t that stable from election to election. This is from an article we did in November:

The Electoral College advantage ebbs and flows




YEAR
NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE
TIPPING-POINT STATE(S)
TIPPING-POINT MARGIN
ELECTORAL COLLEGE EDGE




2016
D__+1.8*
Pennsylvania
R__+1.1
R_+2.9


2012
D__+3.9_
Colorado
D__+5.4
D_+1.5


2008
D__+7.3_
Colorado
D__+9.0
D_+1.7


2004
R__+2.5_
Ohio
R__+2.1
D_+0.4


2000
D__+0.5_
Florida
R__+0.0
R_+0.5


1996
D__+8.5_
Pennsylvania
D__+9.2
D_+0.7


1992
D__+5.6_
Tennessee
D__+4.7
R_+0.9


1988
R__+7.7_
Michigan
R__+7.9
R_+0.2


1984
R_+18.2_
Michigan
R_+19.0
R_+0.8


1980
R__+9.7_
Illinois
R__+7.9
D_+1.8


1976
D__+2.1_
Wisconsin
D__+1.7
R_+0.4


1972
R_+23.1_
Maine_and Ohio
R_+22.3
D_+0.8


1968
R__+0.7_
Illinois_and Ohio
R__+2.6
R_+1.9


1964
D_+22.6_
Washington
D_+24.6
D_+2.0


1960
D__+0.2_
New_Mexico and Missouri
D__+0.6
D_+0.4


1956
R_+15.4_
Florida
R_+14.5
D_+0.9


1952
R_+10.9_
Michigan
R_+11.5
R_+0.6


1948
D__+4.5_
California_and Illinois
D__+0.8
R_+3.7


1944
D__+7.5_
New_York
D__+5.0
R_+2.5


1940
D__+9.9_
Pennsylvania
D__+6.9
R_+3.0


1936
D_+24.3_
Ohio
D_+20.6
R_+3.7


1932
D_+17.8_
Iowa
D_+17.7
R_+0.1


1928
R_+17.4_
Illinois
R_+14.7
D_+2.7


1924
D_+26.6_
New_York
D_+25.2
R_+1.4


1920
D_+31.2_
Rhode_Island
D_+26.2
R_+5.0


1916
D__+3.1_
California
D__+0.4
R_+2.7


1912
D_+17.0_
New_Jersey and Iowa
D_+18.7
D_+1.7


1908
R__+8.5_
West_Virginia
R_+10.2
R_+1.7


1904
R_+18.8_
New_Jersey
R_+18.6
D_+0.2


1900
R__+6.2_
Illinois
R__+8.4
R_+2.2


1896
R__+4.3_
Ohio
R__+4.8
R_+0.5


1892
D__+3.0_
Connecticut_and Illinois
D__+3.2
D_+0.2


1888
D__+0.8_
New_York
R__+1.1
R_+1.9


1884
D__+0.6_
New_York
D__+0.1
R_+0.5


1880
R__+0.2_
New_York
R__+1.9
R_+1.7


1876
D__+3.0_
South_Carolina
R__+0.5
R_+3.5


1872
R_+11.8_
Ohio
R__+7.1
D_+4.7


1868
R__+5.3_
North_Carolina
R__+6.8
R_+1.5


1864
R_+10.1_
Illinois
R__+8.8
D_+1.3

* 2016 popular vote margin is projected

The “Electoral College edge” is the margin in the tipping-point state minus the margin in the national popular vote. Where there are two tipping-point states, their margins are averaged together.

Sources: Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, David Wasserman

harry: I think that’s right about the Electoral College advantage not being permanent, Nate. I will point out that Trump’s approval rating is above his national approval rating in enough states to get over 270 electoral votes. That is, that Trump could win the Electoral College while still losing the popular vote still seems quite plausible.

micah: Conditional on him getting more popular.

natesilver: So are we agreeing or disagreeing, Harry? Because I thought I was pointing out that the Electoral College edge isn’t necessarily all that persistent from one election to the next.

harry: I was agreeing and disagreeing if that makes sense.

natesilver: It doesn’t make sense.

harry: I was saying that you’re right historically but that there are some numbers to suggest that maybe the Electoral College advantage will be stable this time around.

micah: How Trump’s coalition is distributed via the Electoral College will be greatly influenced by who the Democratic nominee is, no?

natesilver: I’m not sure I’d say greatly influenced — but somewhat influenced, certainly. After all, Obama overperformed in the Electoral College relative to his performance in the popular vote. And his coalition was not that different from Hillary Clinton’s.

harry: Not just about who, but what that person articulates as their main message.

clare.malone: This goes back to our theory that Democrats will nominate a populist/progressive white guy in 2020 in order to appeal to more geographic areas.

natesilver: I’d still bet on the Electoral College helping Trump, more likely than not. But it’s not quite as safe of an assumption as our friend who wrote this column assumes.

micah: Next point …

Second, the continued decline in support for both political parties works to Trump’s advantage. The lack of voters’ faith in both parties increases the probability that there will be a major third-party candidate on the 2020 ballot. It will also lead to other minor-party candidates joining the presidential race. The multi-candidate field will further divide the anti-Trump vote, making it possible for him to get reelected simply by holding on to his current level of support.

clare.malone: I do not think this is the case, and I disagree with Nate that this is a time in our history when we’re more likely to see a third-party candidate.

micah: BAM!

clare.malone: I think increased partisanship really does mean that people don’t want to play with spoilers. They want their team to win.

natesilver: I disagree with your disagreement!

clare.malone: Please, sir! Explain!

harry: I disagree with all of you.

natesilver: An unpopular president and an opposition party slightly in disarray sounds a lot like … 1980 or 1992, and those were years that invited third-party challenges.

clare.malone: No, I don’t think we live in the same cultural moment as 1992. There are now two mono-cultures — one for Democrats, one for Republicans. That was not the case in 1992.

natesilver: Well, there were some very … flawed third-party candidates in 2016. And they got, what, 6 percent of the vote? That’s not bad!

micah: But, Nate, 2016 featured the two most unpopular major-party candidates ever, and no real third-party challenger emerged. 2016 doesn’t help your case.

natesilver: The third-party vote was the highest since Perot.

micah:

clare.malone: I would be interested, Nate, to see what kind of candidate you think would be a viable third-party contender in 2020.

natesilver: Viable? I’m not saying anything about viable.

clare.malone: Johnson was very flawed, gaffe-prone, not that serious.

natesilver: How about a Generic Rich Celebrity or Generic Rich Business(wo)man?

How about … K A S I C H L O O P E R!

micah: You’re undermining your own argument here.

natesilver: What do you think my argument is?

micah: That a third-party candidate more viable than Gary Johnson is more likely to emerge in 2020 than they were in 2016.

natesilver: Yes.

So how have I undermined my argument?

micah: Your only suggestions are TBD and Kasichlooper!

natesilver: The playing field is going to look like a mess to a lot of people. You arguably have two parties in disarray. And Trump becoming president will make a lot of people think: The Rules Are Broken And Anything Is Possible.

harry: We’re missing a key point here: I’m not sure a third-party candidacy helps Trump.

natesilver: Well, yeah. I’d agree with that too.

micah: Yeah, that was my next question.

harry: So I pulled some data from the 2016 American National Election Studies and the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Elections Study. According to the former, Republicans won the House vote among people who voted for a third-party presidential candidate by 22 percentage points. The House vote was basically a tie among people who voted for Clinton or Trump. According to the latter, voters who cast a ballot for a third-party presidential candidate were 8 points more likely to identify as Republicans than Democrats. Among Clinton or Trump voters, they were 8 points more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans.

My point being that in 2016, Clinton was probably helped overall by third-party candidates, not Trump.

natesilver: One of the likelier scenarios — not likely, exactly, but not impossible to imagine, either — is a split within the Republican Party.

clare.malone: #Romney

micah: That seems more likely to me than a split in the Democratic coalition, right?

clare.malone: #Romneyexmachina

(I’m kidding, folks. Don’t send me email.)

natesilver: You could imagine the left wing of the Democratic Party nominating its own candidate.

clare.malone: See, that’s interesting.

natesilver: I tend to think the Democratic Party’s nominee will be quite left wing, but we’ll see.

clare.malone: The people who were Bernie Sanders diehards might be underestimated when it comes to splintering off. I think the Democratic chaos is actually pretty deep-seated.

natesilver: But Republicans have the bigger dilemma. Relations between Trump and the Republican Congress are already fraying.

Who wins if the tickets are: Bernie Sanders (Green), Kamala Harris (Democratic), Donald Trump (independent), Mike Pence (Republican).

clare.malone: Pence. (Shameless plug.)

Harris and Sanders are both popular in their own right, which would split the left vote; Pence is more likely to attract a swath of Republicans that encompass mainstream voters on that side and those on the far right.

micah: It depends.

natesilver: The answer, if I had to guess, is that Harris would win the popular vote with a plurality, and Pence would win the election in the House.

micah: I think Pence wins? I imagine that without the gravity of partisanship, Trump is a pretty weak candidate.

natesilver: In that scenario, I actually wonder whether one of Sanders or Harris eventually drops out, though. Because a three-way race between Trump, an establishment Republican and a generic Democrat is a very, very good scenario for the Democrat.

micah: You can’t change the scenario!

natesilver: I made the scenario, and I shall change it as I want.

micah: Anyway, this whole thing about third-party candidates doesn’t belong in an argument that Trump is on track to win in 2020. Can everyone at least concede that?

clare.malone: I concede that.

harry: I agree with that.

clare.malone: I bet Nate won’t.

micah: CONTRARIAN NATE! Wait for it …

natesilver: I concede.

micah:

clare.malone: HE JUST DID IT ‘CAUSE I SAID HE WOULDN’T.

micah: Reverse psychology!

natesilver: I concede NOTHING.

harry: Folks, a parade was just thrown in the office.

micah: OK, next point:

Third, despite dismal poll numbers, Trump enters the contest with a job approval rating that is certainly at least marginally better than what the current national polls would suggest.

natesilver: If he’s talking about comparing polls of registered or likely voters to polls of adults, that’s a vaild point.

micah: That, and also that Trump’s national numbers underestimate his strength in battleground states.

harry: Well, we already spoke a little about the battleground states. That’s true … for now.

It’s also true that he’s doing better among voters than among all adults. We track that.

natesilver: Unregistered voters — who show up in polls of adults but not registered voter or likely voter polls — are largely not a Trump-leaning group. So when they drop out of the sample, things get a bit better for him.

harry: The bigger question is what does a 40 percent approval rating among voters — as Trump has now — mean in terms of a vote.

natesilver: Meh, I don’t think that’s such an interesting question.

harry: OH, I think it’s a very important question.

natesilver: Wrong.

harry: It’s the question, perhaps.

natesilver: Wrong.

clare.malone: This is getting to be unreadable.

harry: A lot of people have argued that Trump won the presidency despite poor favorable ratings and that therefore his piss-poor approval ratings don’t mean squat.

I think that’s wrong, but the question is how wrong.

So here’s something I did. I went back to Franklin Roosevelt and took Gallup’s final estimate of an incumbent president’s approval rating (or Nate’s calculation of that) and ran it against the margin that the incumbent president won or lost by.

natesilver: I think you’re probably making a mistake to conflate approval ratings and favorability ratings. Once you’ve been on the job for four years, voters aren’t liable to vote for you if they think you’re doing a shitty job. Conversely, they might vote for you even if they don’t like you, if you’re not an incumbent and they think they can “take a chance.”

harry: I’m not disagreeing with you, Nathaniel.

micah:

clare.malone: With you, Micah.

natesilver: I think you’re confusing two things, though. What would Trump’s chances be of being re-elected today, Harry?

micah: [Editor’s note: Harry is yelling at us via verbal slack.]

harry: But what’s interesting to me is that when you run my calculation, you get Trump losing by a little over 3 percentage points with an approval rating of 40 percent. That’s not much different from what he lost by in 2016. It also comes with a large enough margin of error to be quite uncertain. I have NO idea what Trump’s approval rating will be on Election Day 2020. I have no clue if it will be up or down. I’m just saying that a president with an approval rating of 40 percent among voters is not doomed. He’s not in a great position, but it’s not awful.

micah:

j/k … I agree with Harry — this is an important question: Trump won, in no small part, because a lot of people who didn’t like him still voted for him. To what extent that will hold true in future election is important.

harry: I’m so sorry I tried to inform our audience. Maybe I should just go home.

micah: Last point:

Fourth, Trump’s support has largely remained durable with a core group of supporters.

Go ahead, Nate.

This is one of your hobby horses.

natesilver: #actually

harry: I hate all of us.

natesilver: This is a myth — Trump’s strong approval rating has actually fallen quite a bit.

harry: I agree.

Great chat, folks.

LOL

natesilver: There’s also evidence that his support has fallen some even among rural, working-class voters:

Now — it is true that some of those voters — maybe most of them — might come back to Trump when he has a Democratic opponent.

clare.malone: That’s what I think is the case.

harry: This actually ties in with the point earlier about third-party candidates. There are a number of folks who will not vote Democratic but would be willing to vote for a conservative third-party candidate.

micah: But we’re also talking about the Obama-Trump voters.

Or our reluctant Trump voters.

Trump can’t win with only his diehards.

And I don’t think the Democratic nominee will necessarily be a non-starter for those more marginal Trump voters.

clare.malone: Roger that. Who cares about his base, on some level.

micah: Well, electorally, yes.

OK, to wrap …

This argument that Trump is on track to win re-election basically boils down to:

Trump doesn’t need to win the popular vote.
A third-party candidate could come out of left field and help him.
Trump’s not as unpopular as you think.
Trump’s base support is inviolate.

No. 4 is wrong. No. 2 could happen, but it’s not particularly likely or more likely than a third-party candidate hurting Trump. Nos. 1 and 3 are true, but … I guess what I’d say is that if your argument is “it’s not that bad,” doesn’t that suggest it’s still pretty bad? A disadvantage not being fatal doesn’t make it an advantage.

I’d 100 percent sign on to an argument along the lines of “Trump could still very much win in 2020” or “Democrats are by no means guaranteed a win in 2020” or “it’s easy to overrate how much trouble Trump is in.”

harry: I don’t think Trump is on track to win re-election. It’s not good.

clare.malone: Yeah, I think the headline of the piece really oversold it, but that’s not the author’s fault per se.

natesilver: I think there’s a much better argument for why Trump is a favorite: Trump is an incumbent, incumbents usually win, and even though he’s unpopular now, there’s a long way to go and his approval ratings now don’t predict much about what they’ll be in 2020.

micah: That last part is true?

harry: Agree with that latter part, and approval ratings tend to revert to the mean in the long run.

natesilver: Like if you called a “snap” election in five weeks between Trump and Joe Biden, I’m pretty sure that Biden would win. Trump vs. Biden in 2020 is a different story (maybe).

micah: OK, so to end … Trump vs. the field … who you got?

clare.malone: I think THE ROCK is just going to be my standard answer every time this question is hurled at us in chats.

But to answer that more seriously … I think I take the field.

natesilver: Well, to come full circle here … I’m not sure how likely Trump is to finish his term and be the GOP nominee again. Conditional on doing so, he might be, say, a very slight (51 percent? 55 percent? 60 percent?) favorite to win re-election. But the times when Trump is in real trouble, he probably doesn’t run or even loses the GOP nomination.

harry: I’ll take the field.

micah: The Rock vs. the field?

clare.malone: THE ROCK!

Politics Podcast: Corker Uncorked

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Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who recently announced that he would retire at the end of his term, is not holding back anymore. Over the weekend, he said President Trump’s recklessness could put the country “on the path to World War III.”

The FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast teams weighs in on how Corker’s criticism could affect Republican politics in the near and long term. The crew also talks to University of Utah communications professor Shannon McGregor about the effect that social media is having on U.S. elections.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button 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 publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. 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.