Nate Silver Says Midterms Could Spell “the End of the Trump Era” if Polls Hold

Polling analyst Nate Silver says next week’s midterm elections could effectively close the book on President Donald Trump’s political dominance, but only if the polls turn out to be right.

Silver made the remarks in an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein released Tuesday, after Klein asked about Silver’s description of the Nov. 3 midterms as “momentous.”

Silver said that if the election goes roughly as the polls predict, it would in some ways mark the end of the Trump era. He acknowledged Trump would still have two years left in office, but argued that the 2028 presidential race would begin the moment the votes are counted, noting that the process could take time in states like Alaska and California. If Trump has a bad night, Silver said, the president would become a “super-lame duck.”

Silver added that turnout will also be crucial.

Silver founded FiveThirtyEight and now writes the Silver Bulletin on Substack. According to Silver Bulletin’s polling averages, Democratic candidates are leading in several key Senate races, including in traditionally Republican states like Texas and Kansas.

The forecaster laid out a similarly grim picture for Republicans in a separate appearance over the weekend. On CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday, the host noted that Silver’s model gave Democrats roughly a 75% to 76% chance of winning the Senate and a 95% chance of winning the House. Zakaria also pointed to the president’s 37% approval rating and the historical tendency of the party in power to struggle in midterms.

When asked whether “shy” Trump voters could be hiding from pollsters, Silver was skeptical, saying it was unfair to assume there would be shy Ken Paxton or Roger Marshall voters, and noting that Republicans did not outperform their polling in 2018 or 2022.

Silver also told Klein that while it was unclear how big a factor artificial intelligence is in this year’s election, it could become the biggest issue of 2028.
Democrats have signaled they will pursue impeachment efforts against Trump and other administration officials if they win back the House.

The White House pushed back hard on Silver’s forecast. White House spokesman Ingle Davis told the Daily Beast that experts and pollsters who underestimated President Trump and his administration had been proven wrong every single time.

That argument carries some weight with Republicans, who point to Trump’s track record of outperforming expectations in past elections, including his 2016 victory that defied most forecasts.

Silver himself acknowledged earlier this fall that a polling miss could change the picture. In a previous podcast appearance, he said that if there is a big polling error, the race could look very different.

With early voting underway across the country and Election Day just a week away, both parties are making their final pushes to turn out voters in what could prove to be a defining contest for the remainder of Trump’s second term.