Nate Silver: Latest preelection polling shows ‘blue tsunami’ on horizon
Silver's word choice is the story here. He's known for hedging, so when he commits this hard to a Democratic wave, it's worth paying attention to. The NYT/Siena polling has a strong track record, and their final slate showing Democrats ahead in several Senate races aligns with other recent surveys.
But I'd want to know the actual margins. A two-point lead in a handful of races is very different from a six-point lead. Silver's past wave calls have been mixed; he gave Clinton a strong chance in 2016 and the final polls still understated Trump's support in 2020. The bigger question is whether pollsters have corrected those errors. If these numbers miss again, we'll see another round of soul-searching about how we measure public opinion. For now, the forecast leans blue, but I'll wait to see the actual tide.
