Is Nate Silver finally admitting he's just doing election models based on vibes now?
Fundamentals are an important part of election modeling:
- polls shift a lot over time
- polling error is a thing
- fundamentals have tended to refine forecasts early in the race when polls are especially noisy.
FiveThirtyEight's model gradually emphasizes polling more as the election nears because the polling gets more accurate as the election nears.
The final 30 days are when polling is the most accurate. By the time of the election, the model is relying on polling instead of fundamentals.