Nate Silver Quotes

I don’t think as a general matter we should be encouraging people who don’t know anything about what they’re voting for to vote. That’s what Democrats do. Republicans shouldn’t follow suit on that.

You add one million citizens to the voting rolls in this state, that's a significant, significant difference. You do that nationwide, it's a significant difference.

Turnout is good for the system.

There are so many ways and different people who show up and vote now. The way turnout works now. The abilities we have now to turn out voters. The polling can't understand that. And that's why the polling was so wrong in 2016. It was 100% wrong. Nobody got it right - not one public poll.

They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

I'm particularly good at turnout. So in my district, I had the lowest voter turnout in 2006. And now I have the highest turnout in the state of Minnesota. And Minnesota is the highest turnout state in the country.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

Calling out people for not voting, what experts term 'public shaming,' can prod someone to cast a ballot.

Campaigns fail if they waste resources courting voters who are unpersuadable or already persuaded. Their most urgent task is to find and persuade the few voters who are genuinely undecided and the larger number who are favorably disposed but need a push to actually vote.

According to the U.S. Census, the most common reason people give for not voting is that they were too busy or had conflicting work or school schedules.

Listen, we're going to have to fight for every vote.

The important things that in a campaign we talk about, let us not forget that once the election is over.

The larger percentage of people you have registered, the larger percentage of people you will have voting.

We don't win or lose elections because of [party] rules.

Too many people are voting.

Rock the Vote

Elections are always about turnout.

We have over 13 million people who supported my candidacy. And I have no doubt that there are some of those people who will not vote for Hillary Clinton.

It's about going to where your voters are.

After the 2012 election, 'independent' becomes the popular choice among new young voters and stays that way with the exception of a brief spike around the 2016 Democratic primary fight.

A lot of times, elections are lost, and the hope of the public is lost because they don't turn out.

I'm well aware of the dynamics of turnout and measuring enthusiasm and identifying and turning out voters. That's something I'm cognizant of in running a successful campaign.

We fail to continue to talk to, to court, to engage our voters. And then we look up and expect our nominees to look up and go from 0 to 100 in a matter of two months to try to secure a victory.

Whenever we do voter registration, we ask, 'Why haven't you voted before?' The response is often, 'No one's asked us.' It's not about telling people what to do - it's about sharing what they can do.

That's the trouble with trying to influence an undecided voter. First you have to find one.