All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg · Monday, June 29, 2026
Nate Silver discusses the historical theory that Democrats benefit from increased turnout through any means, contrasting it with a shift where Republicans now also benefit from high turnout. He expresses no opposition to voter ID laws, seeing them as reasonable, but doubts they would explain the observed outcomes in California's elections.
“So the theory used to be that Democrats benefit from higher turnout by any means at all. And that was an era when Democrats tended to dominate among non-college educated voters, whereas Republicans were like the, you know, the country club, the coalition club people who like show up in the first day of voting. That has shifted.”
“So I mean, look, I think Democrats have really overperformed. It's in special elections. It's in midterms as opposed to high turnout races like when Trump spent on the ballot.”
“So I think if Trump, like like I think voter ID would be pretty reasonable. I'm not against voter ID. You show your ID to do, you know, if you show ID, you even at mid 40s used to get into a bar, you can probably show it to vote.”