Nate Silver

Founder, Silver Bulletin; founder of FiveThirtyEight, Silver Bulletin

Nate Silver Explains Why Republicans Are in Serious Trouble

📅 Oct 16, 2026 The Fifth Column - A Podcast 9 MIN 102058 VIEWS 39 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS

This is an excerpt from our Members Only Episode #350. For the full episode, please visit our Substack and subscribe: https://www.wethefifth.com/publish/po... Nate Silver joins The Fifth Column to explain why Democrats now have a 73% chance of taking the Senate. From Trump's decision to go to war with Iran to soaring gas prices and declining enthusiasm among his own supporters, Silver breaks down what's driving the shift in the polls and why Republicans could be headed for a disastrous midterm election. -- Hosted by journalists Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, The Fifth Column...

What Nate Silver said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Nate Silver discusses the 2026 midterm elections, explaining that Democrats gaining two to three points in the polls has shifted Senate control odds into the 70s. He attributes this to specific swing states like North Carolina, where a strong candidate and blue wave year make pickup likely, and Maine, where Susan Collins has outperformed polls. Silver notes Trump's approval is 37%, with only 17-18% strong enthusiastic support that has declined monthly. He highlights that groups that moved to Trump in 2016 and 2024, like white working-class, Hispanic voters, and young men, now have misgivings and may not turn out. He ties Democratic overperformance in states like Iowa and Kansas to diesel and gas prices. Silver criticizes Trump for not pivoting to an anti-AI populist stance, suggesting his age and fear of a stock market crash affect his judgment on Iran and AI.

Key takeaways

Democrats have 73% chance of taking the Senate, up from 53-54% in August, per Silver's model.
Trump's overall approval is 37%, with strong enthusiastic approval at only 17-18% and declining monthly.
Silver projects Democrats to win the popular House vote by eight to nine points.
Trump has not pivoted to anti-AI populism, which Silver sees as a layup, due to his age and fear of market crash.
Diesel-weighted fuel price increases are driving Democratic overperformance in states like Iowa, Kansas, and Texas.

Numbers and commitments

Figure	What it refers to	Type	At
37%	Trump's overall approval rating	metric	3:43
17-18%	Strong enthusiastic approval of Trump	metric	3:43
$4.50	Gas price mentioned as a factor	price	5:17
$270 million	Elon Musk's donation to Republicans	other	6:44

Chapters

0:00Iran decision and Senate odds
0:44Model mechanics and swing states
2:17Trump rally crowd behavior
3:43Approval ratings and enthusiasm
4:21Voter groups and turnout
5:17Diesel and fuel prices impact
6:44Inflation and affordability
8:41AI and Trump's judgment

Questions asked in this interview

0:28Now it's in the 70s, right?
0:37Is this only gas prices and maybe data set?
2:48Would you say there are reliable Donald Trump supporters that he could shoot somebody on Madison Avenue and it doesn't make a difference?
4:13I'm a Republican, the other guys are worse, so I approve of him, but I'm not enthusiastic about him, basically, right?
7:10That's in your models, that single issue that Donald Trump is most underwater on is inflation, right?
7:23It's like, stock market's up, and that's benefiting all these rich people, these AI types, and not me, right?

Nate Silver 0:00 ↗

You look at like Trump's decision making, and like, I think the thing we haven't mentioned yet, you know, the decision to go to Iran, it's not inexplicable in a literal sense, right? Like, like Pete Hegseth is, you know, Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, right? And like, um, like I don't know why you'd hide it. It's like, it's like Idiocracy basically. Um, but like that decision to me is kind of when, if the polls are approximately right, when the cake was baked, right?

Interviewer 0:28 ↗

So, because you had, I think it was in August, it was at 53%, 54% chance of Dems taking the Senate. Now it's in the 70s, right?

Yes, it's 70, 73. That's a normal shift in two months. Is that really... Is this only gas prices and maybe data set?

Nate Silver 0:44 ↗

Well, look, with the probabilities, right? So what it really represents is Democrats gaining two or three points in the polls, and because you have all these states that are right on the margin, right? So the thing was always Democrats were always going to favor in the House because there's been some redistricting, but like whatever, you have a diversity of House districts. In the Senate, the only theoretical slam dunk pickup would be Maine, except that Susan Collins, who has outperformed her polls like for six cycles in a row — not six, but like four.

North Carolina, statistically, because it's a purplish state and you have a blue wave year and you have a strong candidate in Mike Cooper, that's a pretty solid pickup, right? But like, but it's just North Carolina that's like solid. And so what our model does is say, 'Okay, you have all these 70/30 or 60/40 or 50/50 bets, right? And they're correlated in complicated ways. Like if there's a polling screw-up in Iowa, you probably have the same mistake in Kansas or whatever.' So it's like that's why you need like a statistical model for it. Um, but, you know, it doesn't take much of a tailwind versus a headwind for more of those kind of weighted coin flips to come up heads versus tails.

There might be some mean reversion here. Like in the past couple of days, there have been some slightly better polls for Republicans. You know, you might have some voters coming home. I mean, you know, we are projecting, or so the polls are projecting that we reflect in probability form, Democrats to win the popular vote for the House by eight or nine points. Like that's a big margin in a 50/50 country.

Interviewer 2:17 ↗

When you look at Trump, but as Trump was in Ohio, I guess it was the other day, and one of his rallies...

Nate Silver 2:25 ↗

Looking at Vivek's ass.

Interviewer 2:26 ↗

Well, no, it wasn't Vivek he was talking about.

Nate Silver 2:29 ↗

It wasn't Vivek he was talking about?

Interviewer 2:30 ↗

He was saying...

Nate Silver 2:30 ↗

Yeah, he was saying, yeah.

Interviewer 2:31 ↗

Oh, oh.

Nate Silver 2:32 ↗

Because Vivek doesn't have a nice ass. That's why Vivek was surprised.

Interviewer 2:35 ↗

Wow.

Nate Silver 2:37 ↗

Um, it was...

Interviewer 2:38 ↗

gay president?

Nate Silver 2:39 ↗

Yeah, he's the first. Yeah, as Bill Clinton was the first black president, he's definitely saying he's got a great ass. You got to look at that ass.

Interviewer 2:44 ↗

I thought it was Lincoln. Nate Silver likes the ass.

But you see, he does the thing which is a variation of the thing for a long time. 'I could shoot somebody on Madison Avenue.' He goes... But he was doing this riff and he said, he's like, 'You guys will just clap at anything. Anything I say, you'll clap at me.' Of course clapping, and it's like, 'Jesus Christ, these people.' What percentage of the electorate in the midterm are those people? Are the people that are going out on a Wednesday night to fill a stadium to see Donald Trump, and they've got the spangled Trump, etc., etc.? I mean, I've been to a million Trump rallies covering them, and there was the feeling about that in 2016, even in 2020, and it feels — I mean, I haven't been to these in a while, but it feels less so. What percentage of the electorate are they going out to cast those votes? Would you say there are reliable Donald Trump supporters that he could shoot somebody on Madison Avenue and it doesn't make a difference?

17 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Silver, N. (2026, October 16). Nate Silver Explains Why Republicans Are in Serious Trouble [Interview transcript]. The Fifth Column - A Podcast. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3143410/

MLA

Nate Silver. "Nate Silver Explains Why Republicans Are in Serious Trouble." The Fifth Column - A Podcast, 16 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3143410/.

BibTeX

@misc{silver2026_3143410,
  author       = {Nate Silver},
  title        = {Nate Silver Explains Why Republicans Are in Serious Trouble},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, The Fifth Column - A Podcast. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {oct},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3143410/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (2)

“So, this is one thing that I think is counterintuitive to me, but it's consistent in the data where Trump's overall approval rating is 37%. Not great, right? But of that only I think 17 or 18% is strong enthusiastic approval and there's a lot of grudging approval. And the strong approval has declined every month, right? And so like that's partly why you've seen this fairly linear drop. It varies w”

▶ 3:43 CONTROVERSIAL

“So, where is diesel fuel used? It's used in agriculture. It's used in petroleum. It's used in heating oils. Um used in trucking. So, like basically if you look at a map of like where effective fuel prices have increased the most waiting by diesel consumption, it's tornado alley, right? It's like, you know, Minnesota down to not Minnesota so much, but like, you know, Iowa, Kansas down to Texas. And”

▶ 6:15 CONTROVERSIAL POLICY

Mentioned in this interview

Pete Hegseth: Secretary of Defense, involved in Iran decision

Susan Collins President and CEO: Outperformed polls for six cycles in a row

Mike Cooper: Strong candidate in North Carolina for pickup

Vivek: Joked about at a Trump rally

Ken Paxton: Example of candidate young men won't turn out for

Elon Musk Founder, CEO, Chief Technology Officer & Board Chair: Donating $270 million to Republicans

Bill Clinton: Referenced as first black president in joke

Audi None-Audi AG: Sold Silver a diesel vehicle that violated emission standards

Earlier, on the same topics

“Both history and current year indicators would point in the same direction, which is it's probably going to be a blue year. We remember what happened in 2018 in the last midterm, President Trump's approval rating is in the 38 percent range, disapproval 58, 59 percent. The history of the president's ”

Sep 09, 2026 at 1:49 →

“We have learned that polling has been very good. Number go up for Democrats ever since Labor Day roughly. Currently Democrats have a 72.6 chance of winning the Senate and a 92.8 chance of winning the House. And those numbers are up. When we launched our forecast in mid August, those were like 55% an”

Oct 01, 2026 at 1:11 →

“My thesis is that same as last week, gas costs 450 a gallon. I think it's part of it. Part of it is that when pollsters are switching over to likely voter polls, they're finding a Democratic enthusiasm and turnout advantage. Part of it might be just the bottom falling out from Trump. I mean, as that”

Sep 30, 2026 at 2:28 →

“I'm someone who believes that a lot of politics is downstream ultimately from technology. That some of the relative stability you saw in the 1950s and post-war America, and this is a time when you had record low partisanship and Eisenhower had very high approval ratings, so before Watergate, before ”

approval ratings · Sep 02, 2026 at 22:21 →

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About Nate Silver

Nate Silver, founder of Silver Bulletin and co-host of the Still Counting podcast, has been a prominent voice in coverage of the 2026 midterm elections. Across numerous appearances in late September and October 2026, he discussed his election forecasting model, which he said gave Democrats roughly a 75-76% chance of winning the Senate and a 95% chance of taking the House. Silver attributed Democratic strength to factors including high gas prices, President Trump's low approval ratings, and historical patterns of the president's party performing poorly in midterms. He cautioned that polls carry uncertainty and could be wrong in either direction, while noting that Republican internal polls and spending decisions suggested party concern. Silver also addressed specific dynamics in the election cycle, including the impact of gerrymandering in states like Florida and Texas, the role of candidate quality in races such as Alaska and Iowa, and the presence of fake polls in the media ecosystem. He said his model uses a list of banned pollsters and that he relies on outlets like The New York Times for vetting. In discussing polling skepticism, he said it is not a "normal person" phenomenon but rather reflects elite anxiety following past polling misses. Silver also discussed the launch of Still Counting, a Crooked Media podcast reuniting him with former FiveThirtyEight colleagues Clare Malone and Galen Druke, and commented on the growing role of AI in his work, stating that most of his model's code is now written with AI assistance.

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