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

28:07And those are states where people have moved to and the abundance libs are critical of democratic governance and critical of of um culture war issues on policing and trans rights and and you have what i call the resistance lib faction they're the ones who say they're really fit up with democratic establishment but are still often very partisan and often very like cheerleading for the blue team they're the ones who thought that Joe Biden was railroaded out of the 2024 race, for example, they're really Gavin Newsom's constituency. Why is Gavin Newsom going out of his way to support and endorse kind of the Bidens when Biden, even among Democrats, is not all that popular anymore?

28:51Everyone else wants to move on. And well, it's because it's a signal to like the resistance libs that like, I have your back. I'm a fighter. The reason why we didn't win in 2024 is because the media was unfair to Biden and or because Kamala Harris was a black woman. So pick a white guy who will fight for you and tweet in all caps and you'll win. So it's kind of like ride or die. We're going to just our team, our team, our team's going to win. It doesn't matter. We never apologize. Kind of the Trump playbook, never apologize, go on the attack. Seems to be what Gavin's doing, right? Absolutely. And he had some proof of concept.

29:27I mean, the redistricting thing was a genuinely smart tactical move. Democrats are going to wind up losing seats, But without California, they'd probably lose even more. And so he did skate where the puck was going there instead of the party's usual risk version that I've critiqued before. But at the same time, the triangulating spirit of like, let's pick Kamala Harris because she's the least unacceptable candidate, or Hillary, or John Kerry, if you want to go back to 2004. where the establishment doesn't seem to have an understanding of the fact that almost every election now, Obama in 2012 was, I guess, the exception.

30:05Almost every election now is a change election. We might ping pong back and forth for many cycles. I think Democrats are slight favorites to win in 2028. It wouldn't shock me if AOC or Newsom or Shapiro or Ossoff or whomever wins, if they're underdogs again in 2032. Look what's happening in the UK where, I mean, And it's kind of become like a running joke, but we're going to be through like what, like six prime ministers in nine years or something. And they're probably the U.S.'s like closest comp. It's not a good time to be a defender of the status quo. And I do think candidates like Kamala Harris, who was unable to distance herself, kind of literally unable or unwilling to distance herself from Biden, or Newsom, who's kind of like defending that legacy in the same way.

30:50To me, that seems like a failed strategy, but like in a lot of these World Cup games, sometimes you win on penalties. I don't think that any of the GOP nominees look to be particularly strong. Donald Trump in our approval ratings now is down to 38%. People are upset about Iran. They're upset about gas prices. They're upset about just fatigue of having a singular center star of politics over the past. Trump kind of is like, it's fatiguing a little bit. And so it's an uphill battle for the GOP. Democrats might do their best to give Republicans a fighting chance despite that. So just to extrapolate from that, the point about needing change, driving change on the progressive side, we are seeing socialists getting elected as mayor, socialists starting to rise at the state level.

31:43And many of these candidates that you've mentioned are self-declared socialists at the national level, we may potentially have a democratic socialist as president 2028, based on what you're saying. Is that ultimately where this goes, where the populist movements drive the left further left and everyone in that party now seems to be jumping on this bandwagon, proclaiming socialist principles as the only way to solve inequity and unfairness in this country. and, you know, kind of jumping on what we were from empirical kind of history shown doesn't work as a governing system, as a economic system, but suddenly everyone's kind of been swept away by it and seems to think it's, it's the only way forward.

32:25Does that kind of the, the output of the conditions that you're describing that the left, the Democrats basically become a socialist party and they embrace socialism fully and full throated? I think there are huge generational divides where, you know, So I grew up, I'm 48. So I still remember the kind of, not last questions, but like, I still remember the Cold War. I still remember the Berlin Wall falling, right? So for me, the connotations are of socialism are close, adjacent to communism, are a long history of failure of economic development in countries that adopted that system. I think people who are a little bit older don't realize that the socialism brand is much more popular among younger Democrats.

33:10By the same token, America is still a supremely capitalist country. And again, in my book, I have lots of critiques of the tech sector. We still are attracting the best and brightest young talent from all around the world. I personally think the AI capital boom, whatever it becomes of it, is responsible for keeping our economy, at least the stock market, in relatively good shape. And also things like where have Democrats lost support? Well, actually, the biggest differences are concentrated among Hispanic and to some extent Asian American voters. Who do you think are the most likely people to own small businesses in the U.S.?

33:52It's a cliche, but 100 % true that like recent immigrant groups are very entrepreneurial. It's one thing that I believe makes the United States great. And one thing that makes me very pro-immigration. But you have seen shifts in those groups and the most entrepreneurial groups away from Democrats. Yeah, because I mean, they all escaped socialist countries and socialist backgrounds and the economic mobility that's afforded by free markets and capitalism. And the degree of true liberalism we provide in this country is what's given folks opportunities that don't exist elsewhere. But the second and third generation of the American middle class are probably, you know, more likely, as you point out, to kind of be convinced of the benefits of socialism.

34:36This isn't your wheelhouse, Nate, but if you were hired to give a playbook to either party for 2028, what would be in that playbook? What would you tell them is the right platform for this moment in time, a post-Trump era, and with socialism, wealth disparity, healthcare? There's a group of issues here that keep coming up, the support of Israel, foreign wars. What's the perfect platform for either party, an independent or left-leaning or right-leaning? What are going to be on the top of Americans' minds if you can look that far out? Yeah, look, I, by most definitions, am an elite, as are you guys.

35:17You can afford tickets to game three of the first NBA finals game in New York in whatever, 25 years, and you're probably an elite. And most elites like me say they're socially liberal, economically moderate. I use the term liberal, meaning the way liberals use in Europe, meaning some role for the state, but pro-market in general. And that's probably my view. I'm not sure that view is actually an electoral winner as much, right? the most neglected voters in the US who are culturally a little bit more conservative but like economically more progressive potentially but not quite in the same way that you get from like an AOC they support small business they are wary of conglomerations of power maybe I'm putting that with too generous a brush but like I do think that like when you have the world's first trillionaire when people have a lot of anxiety Maybe the anxiety is not the right shape of anxiety, but understandable anxiety about AI when you have AI leaders saying things like it's going to displace all these white collar jobs.

36:28Look, I think a electorally, I'm not saying morally or righteously, whatever else. Right. I think combining a little bit of the right kind of anti oligarch rhetoric with moderation on some of the issues, you know, on the woke stuff. if I get that term already feels like it's becoming outdated. But still supporting small business, especially for men, right? Young men still want to feel as though they control their own destiny. A lot of them feel like they don't do that anymore, but I don't think they necessarily want all that much handholding. But no, it's a difficult thing to triangulate. And the US is not alone in having a lot of resistance and dissatisfaction with the status quo.

37:18I mean, again, this is part of why, and I'm sure about 2 % of your audience will be sympathetic to this, why I have been more defending of Zoran Mamdani living in New York is because he's at least getting the ins and outs, we'll see what happens after four years, of New York being a basically functional city. right? We have really nice new airports. It's not Zoran's doing, that's a hell of a lot of money spent, but like our crime is like relatively low compared to California. I used to live right near Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, not the nicest neighborhood, not the nicest block, but like I never walked around feeling unsafe there when I visit SF.

38:01Then you have to be more careful, right? And so I think like combining functional performance in government with whatever message you want is part of it. I think maybe even like having like a little bit more like optimism too. I'm kind of always a fan of like zigging where other people zag. Obama presented a more optimistic take about like kind of like the American spirit, right? You know, look, I see all the enthusiasm around the World Cup and the Knicks. I don't want to sound like cliched, but you know, tonight after we tape, this is tipping on a Monday night, New York time, right? I can wander around the streets of New York and there'll be some Norwegian bar that has Norway game on.

38:44That does make America great. And rediscovering those values, I don't know. I mean, maybe somebody like, I think maybe the most electable Democrat might be somebody like John Ossoff, who is younger, who is pretty progressive if you look at his voting record, but isn't a brawler in quite the same way that Newsom is trying to be. I mean, the generational part is a lot of this. You know, I think it's insane that we had a candidate who was trying to be president until he was 86 and the alternative is someone who's trying to be president until he's 82. Like, I don't you don't see very many Warren Buffett.

39:22Fine. If Warren Buffett ran for president, maybe I'd vote for him. Right. But like you don't see very many leaders in other parts of the world. You don't see very many CEOs or leaders. Otherwise, you know, I very much value the contribution of my older friends. Right. But like. to run the biggest country in the world as an 82 year old to me seems kind of insane. And so there's some basic level of competence that Mondami showing in New York. He's positive. He's fixing potholes. He's making it, you know, a celebration of whatever the sports teams are. He's fixing garbage. Like there are some basic things that New York is very much appreciating quality of life.

39:58And that's not something you expect from a Democrat or a socialist. and those kind of like blocking and tackling in the high level of engagement which Trump you mentioned kind of burns people out with that high level of engagement seems like Mondavi comes just under that he's a little more positive he doesn't use like the toxicity that much but he's engaging right and that seems to be working in New York and with the voter base no he's pretty popular here so far and again new york is a new york is a capitalist city i think it's different than somewhere like california it's not kind of as west coast uh freshwater progressive new york is a pragmatic place that people from all around the world migrate to it's a place where there's a lot of wealth all around you it's also a place that despite seeming like a chaotic shit show at times i mean it's look it's easy to be optimistic about new york in in mid June when we have like the most beautiful weather of the year and everyone's coming to visit and everything else.

40:57But like, but New York is a success story in a way that I think California has become less of one, maybe. Sorry, let me just ask you a question on this capitalism. Have you seen data that underscores this main line that everyone's talking about that the youth are kind of disillusioned by capitalism and don't believe in capitalism? I mean, to see this happen in a city like New York, to your point, a city that is a bastion of capitalism and progress and opportunity for people to put in place a candidate as mayor that denounces the capitalism as a system and talks about collectivism just seems to indicate that maybe there's a real movement with the youth.

41:36I mean, one of the statistics I always quote to people is I think 45 million people graduated college in the last decade in the United States that have all of them or a large percentage of them, I should say, have a pretty significant debt burden that they feel is going to be very hard to get out of. And I would argue that that's a function of the federal student loan program and its underwriting processes. And it really condemns people to a life that is going to be very hard to grow your way out of. But what does the data tell you about capitalism and what that says about the next cycle here?

42:09Yeah, where the cut point is, is probably around age 40, I'd say, obviously it kind of ages by a year every year. And like, you know, we saw, I saw before the New York mayoral race last year, people who were able to make incredibly accurate, almost block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood projections based on where Zoran would be good versus Cuomo, just based on knowing the city and where younger people, younger, more progressive people live, I would say, you know, I think part of it might have to do with economic anxiety for sure i think it's also your experience like growing up and exactly when you kind of came of age right again i grew up in like um i guess the first election i was old enough to vote in was clinton in 96 this is like the triumph of the west and capitalism you had a very robust economy in the 1990s you had a lot of growth um and by the time you get to your you know when the great recession hit, I already had by a year, right?

43:09I already had a job. I already had a foothold. I think that people kind of like born... If you were in college when September 11th happened, that might be kind of the cut point, roughly speaking. It doesn't cut quite cleanly from Gen X through millennials. It goes a few years into the millennials. But sometimes I kind of joke, it seems to me like people in their 40s through early 50s are the only sane people in the US, right? That kind of like second half of Gen X in particular, although we've never had a Gen X president, Kamala Harris would have been a boomer too, technically speaking. But there are people who are like, okay, we grew up and we worked hard and we still felt like more or less the American system worked for us.

43:55I think people wrongly or rightly that are half a generation younger don't have that experience. Also, we should talk about, But as much as I think that in certain ways the media is an overrated storyline, how people consume their news, you look now at what's happening at CBS and Paramount or CNN or whatever else. We had an era where you had very centralized news delivery systems under TV and radio. I know I sound like I'm dating myself. the internet's been around for a long time. But when you have three or four major networks that have a huge amount of editorial control over the message, and I used to work at the New York Times, right?

44:37You know, when I first got there, you would still have like the page one meeting every day where it's like, we are the people, the editors of the New York Times, like deciding like what is news and what's not. And now it's become very decentralized. Obviously, social media plays a role in that too. I think the evidence is pretty decent that phones and social media affect youth satisfaction a lot. You also have a culture, I think, among liberals where it's no longer a stoic culture. It's a culture where maybe you might express your grievance. Ironically, maybe AI will change this a little bit. There's some initial evidence that the models actually gravitate toward consensus views, expert opinion.

45:20And sometimes a jaded or hallucinated version of what the consensus really is. But, you know, Claude or ChatGPT is probably less polarizing than Blue Sky or Twitter. Let's talk about social media for a second. It used to be a paradigm of you follow people, you build your filter, you have your list, you spend a lot of time curating that. And then TikTok comes out with their For You page, FYP. YouTube goes full algorithm. And now X has gone basically full algorithm. You can follow whoever you like, but your follower count is not your viewer count and engagement count. And obviously, after Elon took over Twitter, Libs, a lot of celebrities decided to leave.

46:02Business people stayed. Lots of anonymous accounts. It's the free speech platform of all free speech platforms. It's chaotic. But what impact, just in that very tiny nuance of followers to algorithm, has changed and impacted politics? Because it feels like the filter bubble is becoming incredibly pronounced. I mean, you give two or three things alike, and now that's the rest of your entire day. Yeah, look, for me, I don't think a person should have a correlated stance on taxes and abortion and Gaza and the free market and whatever else. um partisanship is a very powerful force to squish this very complicated array of political issues we have in the united states on into into just one dimension blue versus red or left versus right and social media twitter in particular i think is a very effective mechanism for that and i get i get totally yelled at for um any bit of heterodoxy like in particular like saying biden is obviously too old democrats you're gonna you're gonna lose unless you replace him like that even though it's a stance that like literally 80 of voters agreed with will make you like seem like a heretic on twitter i've been critical by the way of of parts of what elon has done although some of the things predate him like the algorithmic feed um wasn't purely invented by email on it was improved or perfected or worsened depending on your point of view by the current regime you know i do think it's a problem that like look if i choose to follow an account, you, Jason, or the New York Times or whatever else, or Nick's account.

47:38I want to see their tweets without having to give the algorithm an additional signal. Like that part bothers me. I don't like the depreciation Twitter debates. It's about - That's incredibly frustrating. Like you literally have to favorite or like things in order to keep them in your feed. And I told the Twitter team, you should have a little button on the follow. Show me every post from this person. If I want to get my Ski Mountains reports or I want my Nick's fan TV, I want every single post. And there's no way to do that except like every post. And then your feed just goes off the rails. Yeah.

48:08I mean, it's very, look, I actually think the for you algorithm is pretty decent for what it is. You have to train it. Like, you know, for a while I got a bunch of like fight videos because they're compelling. You see like a fight of teenagers and like, oh, I spent eight minutes, seconds watching this or whatever else. It's terrible. If you click, don't show me this anymore. It is pretty responsive and it's pretty good. Like the algorithm knows right now, I just want to read tweets about the World Cup and is Giannis getting traded, right? And maybe a little bit about the New York and California elections.

48:40But I wish there were like, you know, I don't like any algorithm that like presumes it's like smarter than the user. And if I log in or if I subscribe to somebody and I want to see their tweets and I haven't muted them, then show me their tweets. You can mix in things that you think I'll like. breaking the algorithmic or the time the chronological feed is also annoying to me right like i want um if i'm watching the world cup and there's a tweet about a match from six hours ago someone's like oh my god amazing right i'm like what just happened and like it's not surfacing things in quite the right order um look i think a lot of companies kind of make the mistake of uh twitter was i'm not sure if twitter was ever going to be like a hugely profitable company.

49:23It was a very unique resource for following the news. If like I am, and like you guys are, at least you Jason are like total news addict. Like it was a very unique platform. And I wish that functionality had been preserved again, to be fair. Um, this started before Elon, although it has been continued since. Let's wrap on 2028 and in particular, Gavin Newsom. Oh, no, predictions for the midterms. Predictions for the midterms. Lightning round. Prediction for the midterms. House and Senate predictions. What does the data tell us right now? So we'll have a model out within a few weeks. Been a little bit delayed by the World Cup and the redistricting stuff.

50:02Prediction markets say Democrats are around, I think, 80 or 85 percent to take the House and 40 or 45 percent to take the Senate. Those both seem pretty reasonable to me. I think if anything, it's a little bit low on the House. I think it might be more like 85 or 90. My models surprise me sometimes. But look, we've been through a lot of elections that are inherently hard to forecast. The House is the one where everything kind of points in the same direction. Democrats are facing a very unpopular president, an economy that voters have a lot of anxiety about, Trump, no new Middle Eastern wars. On top of that, the very, very long history of the president's party drawing a backlash and performing poorly at the midterms the more recent history of incumbent backlash in the U.S.

50:47and all around the world, the good results Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia last year, and special elections. Look, the redistricting thing helps the GOP a little bit in the end, but you're fighting against a lot of gravity, whereas the Senate is more of a numbers game. Even in a pretty blue environment, Democrats have to win some seats in red states. It seems to me that taking a big risk in Maine which is a state that by all rights they ought to win in a d plus eight year in a d plus 10 state but grand platner is only two points ahead of susan collins i think i take that polling at face value i think he is i take him at 50 50 but like that's a unnecessary risk potentially um but look um the gop will be able to in these red states a candidate like talarico who is also probably in roughly a toss-up race and paxton is a far less than ideal republican nominee like partisanship is still a powerful force people are saying why are they kind of attacking talarico on i think things that are are not above board you know critiquing your sexuality or whatever else what's because texas is like a really red state and like trump's not popular so you're like you're kind of going for like the lowest common denominator but in our system that works a fair amount of the time so just a a polling and math and numbers game in the senate we're going to see more money spent than ever.

52:12Whereas the House, 435 seats, I think the partisan gravity is more likely than not just too much for Trump to overcome. Is there anything that Trump can do or that could change in a macro out of our control perspective that could shift things more significantly for the House back to the Republicans? If he can get gas prices down, it's such a visible indicator you drive by the chevron station whatever else right you you literally see it you know i think if you look at forecasts there is supposed to be some abatement but very contention on how long the conflict war in iran persists in this quagmire um you know look maybe if we uh maybe if we have a hei right by by in october or something who knows what happens then but no it's his unfavorable ratings are very entrenched and Democrats are very enthusiastic despite their misgivings about their own party.

53:10And as much difficulty as I think they'll have in 2028 nominating a candidate to vote for your generic Democrat against a generic Republican is a pretty easy ask for, for Democrats who feel like democracy on the line. And like, and like, so I think that's fairly baked in as someone who builds models. I don't been on politics, have been on sports, I'm always aware that like, yeah, there's the 10 % chance that the underdog you never see coming prevails, you know, Cape Verde ties with Spain or something. But like, that's pretty fundamentally driven. Whereas on the flip side, needing to pick up four Senate seats when you might blow the opportunity in Maine, it's a toss up, probably slight edge to the GOP with maybe gas prices and Iran determining whether it's more truly 50-50 or maybe 60 % GOP.

53:58The chances of winning both, is that 80 times 40 type situation? Or is it different because of politics and the way the statistics work? Are they correlated? Yeah. Yeah. They're almost perfectly correlated. So if the odds of Democrats winning the Senate but not the House are like 1%, if you go to Kalshi or Polymarket, whatever else, they have to be like around 1%. So conditional on Democrats winning the Senate, they'll almost certainly have won the House, they'll almost certainly have won governorships, which by the way, these things are important. I think people probably focus too much on the national picture and not enough on what happens at the state level where people actually have executive power and you're picking the candidates and the policies for the next generation.

54:41State legislatures are important. If I were talking to all the listeners, I'd say, look for a city council candidate, for whom your contribution might make a lot of difference. But like, no, if Democrats win the Senate, that means it's a really blue year to overcome the fact that you're winning in places like Ohio, Iowa, Alaska. And if that happens, therefore, probably the rest of it, all the dominoes fall that way. All right. Gavin Newsom in 2028, he's an enigma of a politician, worst run state in the union as far as I'm concerned, but he's so polished and he speaks so well and people seem to like him with that great hair what should we take from gavin newsom's you know continued ascension am i correct that he's still you know on the up he's not so we have an article up on silver bulletin which will publish shortly after we finish this podcast newsom has fallen in democratic primary polls from around 25 to 15 he's fallen on polymarket it from like 33 % to 22 % or something.

55:44I think he was benefiting from some degree of name recognition, whereas now Democrats see a candidate like John Ossoff in Georgia, another good looking young guy, but like actually has a credential, which he will never have of having won an election in a purple state and being a younger, fresher face. Like whatever you say about Graham Plattner and Janet Mills in Maine, I think Mills in the abstract might have been the safer choice. I think it's good that Democrats are showing a bias toward younger candidates, right? That's a lot of what happened with Zoran too. I wouldn't discount, by the way, someone like an AOC.

56:25I'm not sure if she'll run. Someone like Chuck Schumer might be very vulnerable in the 2028 primary. For example, she has a lot of time to wait. But I could see, again, in New York, it's New York, so therefore where you can't extrapolate too much from New York. However, people saying, we are sick and tired of the democratic establishment. I'll take a more centrist version or a more left-wing version, but not the same. I think ultimately Newsom has a hard argument to make. He's arguing for continuity with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. He's embracing Joe Biden when that strategy has failed electorally.

56:57I would argue in California, governance-wise as well. To me, it's like a... I think Newsom is actually in a pretty defensive position. And that's why you see him having Hunter Biden or something on his podcast. Yeah, yeah. And AOC is now 36 years old, so she qualifies. You're saying it's not a zero chance that she could become the equivalent of Trump, the outsider, the burn it down, the I'm sick and tired vote? She's my bet. She's my bet. Yeah. Yes, you're a bet. Okay, what do you think? Let's talk about AOC. She got that possibility with her charisma? We've seen in states like Maine. We may see this in Michigan as well, where, yeah, I mean, look, for many years in the Republican primary, the notion was that the establishment always won out, that you'd have like the Rick Santorums or Sarah Palins or Herman Caines or whatever else is who would get 40 % of the vote.

57:51But the same country club establishment types we talked about at the top of the show would prevail at the end of the day. and then it doesn't take that much of perpetually growing dissatisfaction or generational term like young people in general like don't understand like why the f**k would i care about like a party brand anyway like the democratic party brand is like a a lame brand as certainly the gop is um interesting so if you're an avatar for that brand then like you know i look i think the best candidates even obama in 2008 obviously not even obama obama was a highly effective one of the generationally charismatic candidate.

58:29But even he combined, on the one hand, positioning to the left of Clinton on issues like Iraq. On the other hand, he had a whole, whatever, we have gay sisters in blue states, red states, and we play Little League in the blue states, and that whole post-partisan rhetoric. I think the most effective candidates can be exactly what he is. He has made some efforts. I mean, he had Charlie Kirk on his podcast, I think it was last year, right? He has tried to moderate i mean he's against the billionaire tax um he's tried to moderate on some of the culture war issues like nominated a institutional candidate from california she didn't come that far from winning but she lost all the swing states by by you know two to five points and like i don't believe at the end of the day democrats would be persuaded that like oh just because you're white and you have different anatomy like that that fell from the one that every Democrat was terrified by in 2024.

59:21All right. An hour with our guy, Nate Silver. Let us know what you think in the comments. We will have you back on when we do our live election coverage for sure if you're available and the audience always loves when you're on. He gets paid a lot on that night, Jake. I don't think he's coming on all in. All right, whatever. He's a fan of the pod. He's a fan of all in. He's part of the family. I'll come in the next day. Whatever. Whenever you're not securing the bag to secure more Knicks tickets for our repeat next year, everybody go right now if you hear my voice to the silver bullet and pop out a hundy and subscribe you're gonna love it 95 bucks jason that's what i rounded up to a hundy but yeah listen i know that you've probably done the metrics 94.97 is the right number for the guy at the door five bucks for the guy whatever i would skip a little bit off the top it's all good and uh yeah everybody go to polymarket place some bets our favorite partner nate's favorite partner and uh yeah We'll see you all next time on the All In Interview Show.

1:00:18Thanks, Nate. Great job, Nate. You rocked it. Thank you so much, guys. That was awesome. I'm going all in.

1:00:37I'm going all in.