Election Eve 2025 Live At The Comedy Cellar

Summary

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GD POLITICS: Election Eve 2025 Live At The Comedy Cellar

Host: Galen Druke
Guests: Nate Silver, Claire Malone
Date: November 4, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this special Election Eve episode, host Galen Druke is joined by data guru Nate Silver and journalist Claire Malone for a live show at New York’s iconic Comedy Cellar. The trio dives deep into 2025’s key elections—focusing on the New York City mayoral race—unpacks polling nuances, analyzes the impact of scandals in the “post-Trump era,” and exchanges sharp, often funny insights into the shifting political landscape. The live audience energy adds both levity and urgency as they grapple with the meaning of local elections amid the Democrats’ ongoing 2024 postmortem.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Kicking Off with New York, Dallas, and City Stereotypes

• The episode opens with banter about a New York Post story claiming “everyone’s moving to Dallas if Mamdani wins,” sparking jokes about Dallas ("It kind of smells like oil" — Nate Silver, 01:19), New York ("New York smells like pizza” — Nate Silver, 01:30; "Pizza smells like garbage. Let's be honest." — Claire Malone, 01:32), and local cultures.

2. Meet the Hosts and Setting the Scene

• Galen welcomes a sold-out crowd and introduces Claire Malone (New Yorker staff writer) and Nate Silver (538 founder, Silver Bulletin editor). They riff about birthdays and Nate’s ongoing saga with Disney over 538’s brand rights ("They were like, we refused to sell to you because you were mean to us. I'm not making that up." — Nate Silver, 03:16).
• The team outlines the night: discussions on the major statewide races, the New York City mayoral election, and interactive segments like “Hot Take Hat” and “Guess What Americans Think.”

3. The 2025 Election Landscape

[04:19]

• Galen lists election hotspots: VA & NJ statewide races, a California ballot initiative, local elections nationwide, and the highly-watched NYC mayoral contest.

4. The NYC Mayoral Race: Polling and Uncertainty

[06:28–10:47]

• Poll Variation & Technical Deep Dive:

  • Galen challenges Nate on the significant polling spread in the NYC mayoral race (e.g., a 20-point difference between respected pollsters).
  • Nate explains that variation is expected when pollsters don't "herd" numbers, especially with highly mobilized first-time voters and an atypically young early voting demographic:
    “There’s more natural variation if you’re truly taking a random sample... we actually had... a primary earlier... we saw that he had very high youth turnout. ...turnout is high in what people call the commie corridor” — Nate Silver, 07:38 & 08:38.
  • Nate gives “Cuomo a real 5%” chance to win, not just “covering your ass” odds, citing real historical polling misses in NY.

• Scandals and the “Shy Voter” Effect:

  • They debate if scandals still swing elections. Nate points to consistent polling for Mamdani and minimal movement for Cuomo, hypothesizing shy voters are less of a factor after the June primary demonstrated clear voter intent.

• Candidate Personas:

  • Favorability ratings and public image matter: “Cuomo has not persuaded Normie voters and Zolbar has lots of people who dislike him...the caricature is contradicted by this guy who’s...energetic and affable... Cuomo is not a good messenger” — Nate Silver, 11:26.
  • Trump’s endorsement of Cuomo is discussed for its polarizing effect, comedic value, and “nationalizing” potential.

5. Scandal Fatigue and Voter Forgiveness in the Trump Era

[12:42–13:24]

• Claire observes, “There does seem to be—Republican, Democrat—candidates who have very, very imperfect things in their past, and voters will, if they like them or inclined towards them, they’ll kind of say... I mean, I don’t really care, [they've] evolved.” She notes how this tolerance would have been unthinkable pre-2016.

6. How the NYC Mayoral Race Fits into the Democrats’ 2024 Postmortem

[14:00–15:33]

• Galen frames Tuesday's election as a “test of how much scandals matter,” comparing it to other races with candidates dogged by controversy.
• Claire describes the race’s “nationalization”—both because “we all live here, we wanna cover it”—and because Trump treats Mamdani as a kind of bogeyman in his campaign communications.
• Claire: “To put it nicely, Mamdani is sort of a bugaboo for Trump... he keeps foreshadowing what’s going to happen in New York.”

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

“Dallas smells like oil. I’m not making that up. Denver smells like weed and Dallas smells like oil.”
— Nate Silver (01:19)

“New York smells like pizza.”
— Nate Silver (01:30)
“Pizza smells like garbage. Let’s be honest.”
— Claire Malone (01:32)

“The 538 brand is still available for purchase... They refused to sell to you because you were mean to us. I’m not making that up.”
— Nate Silver (03:16)

“There’s more natural variation if you’re truly taking a random sample of people than you’d think...If you knew the result was around plus 10, you might get in 600 person samples, some plus 18s and some plus fours.”
— Nate Silver (07:38)

“Turnout is high in what people call the commie corridor… Where do you live, Galen? I guess I'm in the commie...”
— Nate Silver (08:38)

“I think in some ways, Tuesday night is going to be a test of how much scandals matter.”
— Galen Druke (13:24)

“There does seem to be—Republican, Democrat—candidates who have very, very imperfect things in their past, and voters will, if they like them... just kind of say, ‘I don’t really care.’ ...That stuff used to play differently... the Trump era really seemed to change that.”
— Claire Malone (12:42)

“To put it nicely, Mamdani is sort of a bugaboo for Trump... he keeps foreshadowing what’s going to happen in New York. So I think that does nationalize it.”
— Claire Malone (14:54)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:26 – Welcome and setting the live show scene
• 01:19 – Stereotypes: Dallas, Denver, NYC smells
• 03:16 – 538’s backstory: Disney drama
• 04:19–04:59 – Preview of election topics
• 06:28 – Discussion begins on the NYC mayoral race
• 07:38–09:42 – Nate’s polling analysis, first-time voter impact, “commie corridor”
• 10:47–13:24 – Discussion of candidate personas, favorability, and Trump’s endorsement
• 12:42 – Claire on new voter tolerance for scandal
• 14:00–15:33 – Contextualizing the mayoral outcome in 2024 postmortem and national political conversation

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Tone and Style

The tone is candid, analytical, and comic—reflecting both the Comedy Cellar venue and the panel’s personalities. The trio’s easy rapport, live audience laughter, and irreverence (“commie corridor,” “pizza smells like garbage,” “they refused to sell to you because you were mean to us”) keep the episode lively while maintaining a serious look at the implications of 2025’s elections and what they reveal about American political behavior post-Trump.

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Closing

This Election Eve live episode delivers lively, informed debate around major 2025 races—especially NYC’s mayoral contest—and deftly examines why voter attitudes are more tolerant of scandal than ever. The conversation is equal parts rigorous and playful, making sense of the nation’s fractious politics with data, wit, and a touch of birthday-party spirit.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey there, listeners.

[B]

Today's episode is a preview of the Election Eve live show we did with Nate Silver and Claire Malone at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. If you'd like to catch the full episode, become a paid [e-mail]. you'll also be able to watch the video there. And as a reminder, that's where we'll be live streaming election night results beginning at 7pm Eastern on election night, November 4th. All right, here's the show.

[A]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Please put your hands together and help me welcome Nate, Galen and Claire. All right, all right, all right. Did you guys see that New York Post story today? I want to read it to you. They said everyone's moving to Dallas if Mamdani wins. Fortune investment CEO was quoted saying, you don't sacrifice anything by being in Dallas versus in New York. From a business perspective, it's easy. From a lifestyle perspective, it's better.

[C]

He loves to drive.

[A]

Guys, is Dallas ready for us?

[C]

Has anyone here been to Dallas? It has. Neiman Marcus. Home of Neiman Marcus.

[D]

It kind of smells like oil. I'm not making that up. Right, Like.

[C]

Like petroleum products.

[D]

Yeah, it's like Denver smells like weed and Dallas smells like oil.

[A]

And what does New York smell like?

[D]

It smells like pizza.

[A]

Pizza?

[C]

Pizza smells like garbage. Let's be honest.

[A]

It's a little kind. All right, you ready to do this? Yeah, let's do this. Hello and welcome to Election Eve live at the Comedy Cellar. I'm Galen Drook, and we are a studio sold out show here tonight. So give yourselves a round of applause. Welcome. All right, do we have any Virginians in the house tonight? Oh, we have any. We have. Do we have any New Jerseyans in the house tonight? Okay, a smattering. Do we have any New Yorkers in the house tonight? Okay, there we go. All right, well, we got a lot planned for you this evening. And joining me on stage to do it all is New Yorker staff writer Claire Malone.

[C]

Hi, Kaylin.

[A]

Hey, Claire. How you doing? How are you doing? I'm good.

[C]

I'm good.

[A]

You got your beer?

[C]

I got a beer.

[A]

Guys, if you hang around long enough tonight.

[B]

It's not my birthday yet.

[A]

My birthday's on Wednesday. We might do birthday shots.

[C]

Galen is gonna be 35 and he looks great.

[A]

Did you know that the government shutdown and I are turning 35 on the same day? I just realized that on the subway over here.

[C]

I also always think of you as, like, 26.

[A]

I know.

[C]

It's like you're stuck in time.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, me, too. Like, in my mind, I'm also still 26, but my back doesn't think so. Also here with us is founder of 538 the Silver Bulletin, everything RIP and just data expert extraordinaire Nate Silver. Do you know the 538 brand is.

[D]

Still available for purchase? We talked to Disney about it, and they were like, we refused to sell to you because you were mean to us. I'm not making that up.

[C]

Wait, really?

[D]

Yeah, you can report that. I don't care.

[C]

Oh, well, someone.

[D]

I hate their guts.

[C]

So, yeah, someone here is gonna buy it then.

[A]

For any amount of money.

[D]

Look, we didn't offer very much because.

[A]

Like.

[D]

We would have paid more than we would have paid. Donated $538 to the Bob Iger Foundation.

[A]

Nate, it looks like you might need a little help over there. Do you want to push. You can push your mic forward, like, right, like this.

[D]

I thought this was intentional. I want it.

[C]

No, I don't think I want it.

[A]

Or you can. You can standing desk, the whole situation if you want to. Yeah, you're looking. You're doing just fine. Okay.

[C]

But, yeah, I think tilt it might.

[A]

Be a little high now pull it down a little bit. See, this is what producing Nate is like. The analysis is stellar, but sometimes, like, the technical aspects, you really just have to fiddle with.

[C]

No, just go like this.

[A]

Maybe even just push the table back.

[D]

I'm trying.

[A]

All right, good plosives. All right, perfect. We got a lot to cover tonight, so we're going to dive in, and we're going to start with, you guessed it, the 2025 elections. We have statewide races in Virginia and New Jersey. There's a ballot initiative in California, and I don't know if you've heard, there's a mayoral race right here in New York City. And also, by the way, millions of people around the country are voting in local elections. There are, in fact, statewide elections in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Not for anything super significant, I guess Supreme Court judges is, like, pretty important. And, like, what is it? The electric utility board in Georgia. So, you know, get ready. Then we're going to move on to guess what Americans think think 2025 election edition. And then we are bringing back a segment from last time we did this called Hot Take Hat. We got a lot of topics to discuss, but we're going to leave it to chance in terms of which ones we actually discuss, we don't have. I need a. I need a helping hand. Maybe Eli can come up here for that. Part of the show. And help me out.

[C]

Is that Eli? Oh, my gosh. The famous Eli.

[A]

Readers, round of applause for Eli. Yeah.

[C]

We should explain who Eli is.

[A]

Yeah. Nate, who's Eli?

[D]

Dalen, you ruined the surprise.

[A]

Oh, sorry.

[D]

Because I have to be honest, I don't personally care that much about the Virginia or New Jersey gubernatorial election. So I was gonna call on Eli as my fauna friend, and now you've undermined the gag. You undermine the suspense factor.

[A]

Okay, well, you can still do it.

[D]

Okay. Eli is my wonderful Sarah Bolton, senior elections analyst. Thank you, Eli.

[C]

Are you. You're hiring more staff, aren't you?

[A]

We have.

[D]

We have three people now, counting me. We are hiring an editor in January, so that's. We have a Slack channel. It feels like real work half the time.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah, this does feel. I mean, honestly, it's a. It's not the end.

[D]

So let's get another day at the Comedy Cellar, like. Like usual.

[A]

Okay, let's get to it. And Nate, I think I'm going to start with a question for you. We'll begin with the New York City mayoral race. According to the average at ddhq, right now, Zoran Mamdani leads.

[C]

Decision desk headquarters, Decision desk headquarters.

[A]

Zorin Mamdani leads by 10 points at 45%. Cuomo has 35%, Sliwa 18%. Underneath that is a lot of variation. Just today, the top rated pollster in the country, according to Silver Bulletin, the Atlas intel, put out a poll showing Mandani leading by just five points. At the end of last week, a minus rated pollster, Emerson College, put out a poll showing Mandani leading by 25 percentage points. Variation is often times a good thing in the polls. It means that pollsters aren't hurting and just trying to land the right number when it's all said and done before the polls close. But a nearly 20 point difference amongst quality pollsters. And I want to ask a really technical question here, which is stick with me.

[B]

What the.

[D]

So, yeah, this is the opposite of what we saw in 2024, where there was a lot of herding, right. Where every single poll was Trump plus one, Harris plus one, Trump plus two, Harris plus two. There's more natural variation if you're truly taking a random sample people than you'd think. Right. If we knew the result was around plus 10, you would get in 600 person samples, some plus 18s and some plus fours. And, you know, even the 1 in 25 outlier or the 1 in 20 outlier, you're outside the margin of error 5% of the time, if you're doing honest work. But look, traditionally turnout in New York mayoral general elections is rather sleepy. Right? If you had the people who usually turn out in these elections. If you look at polls among people who have lived in New York for X number of years, usually people that vote very often. Right. That group is fine for Cuomo. Right. So Mamdani is relying on a lot of first time, maybe not first time voters for anything, but first time voters in local politics. However, we actually had something called a primary earlier, you know, and we saw that he had very high youth turnout. We see we have early voting data, which I think can be over sliced and over diced and whatever else, but like, it would seem to suggest that the electorate is much younger than it was typically. And also turnout is high in what people call the commie corridor in like, you know, the Brooklyn brownstone. Getting a green point. I don't know, probably. Where do you live, Galen? I guess I'm in the commie.

[A]

Yeah, I think. I think we all live.

[D]

I'm in the East Village.

[C]

That's named after Doc Scalan.

[A]

Yeah, I'm not telling anyone where I live. It's a secret.

[D]

Nate, what's your exact address?

[A]

Okay, but my Social Security number is.

[C]

But he does live in the commie corridor.

[D]

No, but look, I think the previous election result is important. You know, if. So, look, there have been misses of 10, 12, 15 points in New York. It's hard to pull people, you know, we're busy. We're not just sitting around waiting for a pollster to call us. So, like, you know, the whatever 5% chance that Cuomo has on polymarket, it's like it's a real 5%, not just covering your ass, but like.

[A]

Wait, what's a real 5%?

[D]

Look, sometimes prediction markets at extreme outcomes get a little funny, right? Where if the incentives are not set up right, they're getting better. Like polymarket, for that matter, Kelsey, like actually have lower transaction costs. You can actually trade out on the end of the curve. But yeah, sometimes people round down, you know, I don't know. I mean, like, people often round down probabilities from 195 because they get rounded up by people mentally anyway. But like they're, you know, it would not be insane for there to be a miss of 10 or 12 points, right? And if you say, okay, look at the most recent poll. I mean, even the most recent polls though, there's not been a consistent trend toward Cuomo or away from Cuomo for that matter. Right. It's been about 15 points in the noisy average consistently for several weeks now. Right. If it weren't for that primary, you'd say, well, maybe, you never know. Maybe there's some shy, shy Cuomo voters. They don't want to say they're voting for this guy who's been accused of so much, but they'll vote. But like we, again, we had the same contests with 70% of the same voters in, in June and we know that result, result of that was. And that to me reduces the uncertainty a fair bit.

[C]

Is there any. I mean, Trump just endorsed Cuomo, which is pretty, just pretty funny, which Zoran.

[A]

Happily put it out. Right.

[D]

I think, yeah, it's.

[C]

Well, but I mean, there's not really any kind of like October surprise for Zoran besides that video from 2023 about.

[A]

Wait, you didn't see him at the gay club poppy juice last night?

[C]

I'm not on that Twitter. What?

[A]

No, there's no surprises. The man is, I mean, his final campaign tour of New York City is truly like. You've never seen any. I mean, it's, it's like if Eric Adams drank, that's kind of what it's like. But go ahead. He went to a Knicks game.

[D]

Went to.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

No, but like, I don't think if you look at his favorability ratings are actually, if anything like a tiny bit better than they were at the start of the campaign. I just think fundamentally Cuomo has not persuaded Normie voters and Zolbar and has like lots of people who dislike him. Right. If you look at the favorability, it's like 40% favorable, 40% strongly unfavorable. Right? Strongly. Strongly. All the people who are not strong, they tend to like him. Right. The caricature that is presented I think is contradicted by this guy who's, you know, energetic and affable and dresses well and smart on his feet, good looking guy. Like all this presentation stuff is not an accident and I think matters a fair bit. And like Cuomo is not a good messenger and the fact that like you have Trump or Bill Ackman or whatever else. Right. Like these people are like not persuasive. I don't know, it's like the race, you know, I'm not going to tell you how I'm voting. Right. It's like the race to like negatively polarize Nate. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, you know, it's. They're not very appealing spokespeople for their message. And I think, like, I think they maybe made the mistake of trying to make it about his personality.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And like in New York, a lot of people probably know somebody like Zoran. Right. You know, kind of somebody who's, who's kind of hustling and smart and young and ambitious and maybe gets a little caught up with a certain fashionable crowd or whatever.

[C]

I'm sure we'll get into this when we talk about the other races this year. But there also is just across the board, since Trump has started, just more of a, I guess a voter willingness to say like, that person made mistakes or changed their mind on things or they've evolved. Like Graham Platner is a more extreme example that I'm sure, again, we'll talk about. But there does seem to be Republican, Democrat, like, candidates who are, have very, very imperfect things in their past, and voters will, if they like them or incline towards them, they'll kind of say, like, I mean, I don't really care. And the candidate can really plausibly say, I've changed my mind since then, or I've evolved. And that stuff used to kind of, I think, play differently. And then the Trump era really seemed to change that.

[A]

I think in some ways, Tuesday night is going to be a test of how much scandals matter. I mean, we're going to see that in Virginia with text messages about political violence. You know, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General sent text messages basically promoting political violence that he's had to apologize for. We've seen some weird stuff in the polling, like, you know, could he outright lose? What's the gap going to be? I mean, Cuomo is himself scandal plagued. Yep. You know, I don't.

[C]

But the fact that he even jumped in. Right. That, that was, that was sort of seen as something plausible. Right. That's something that wouldn't have happened 10 years ago.

[A]

Anthony Weiner never got in a race again. Okay, wait, I have a question for you, which is we are now almost exactly one year into the Democrats 2024 post mortem.

[B]

It's been fun.

[D]

How's it been meaning a year after the election?

[A]

A year after the election? Democrats have been talking about why they lost for a year. And everyone, like, there's as many theories as there are people and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, everyone spent a lot of breath on it. A New York City mayoral race between a Democrat and independent and a Republican is probably not nationalizable, but no one's gonna stop anyone. They've defunded the political analyst rigor police, and I think it's gonna Be hot. Take Central. How will the New York City mayoral race play into the Democrats 2024 postmortem?

[C]

Oh, okay, great. Well, I mean, first of all, it is. I mean, it's obviously, there's obviously the media criticism of we all live here, we all wanna cover it because we're all breathing it every day. But Trump also breathes it every day, which makes it nationalized. I mean, he sort of taken, you know, to put it nicely, Mamdani is like sort of a bugaboo for Trump. And he keeps on talking about, you know, what he's going to do with, you know, sort of not talking about, but foreshadowing what's going to happen in New York. So I think that does nationalize it. I mean, it's kind of, I think that the Democratic talking heads conventional wisdom has now coalesced into.

[B]

All right, that's the end of today's preview. Head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and listen to the full live show. It lasted close to an hour and a half. We shared our final takes on the 2025 elections. We discussed the latest new controversies, such as the demolition of the East Wing, Graham Platner's Nazi tattoo, and the Senate filibuster in a round of Hot Take Hat. We timed our takes no more than three minutes, and we played guess what? Americans think election 20 edition in competition with the audience. Like I said, head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the whole thing. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes, can join in the paid subscriber chat, and most importantly, keep this podcast going. When you become a subscriber, you can connect your account to wherever you listen to podcasts so you'll never miss an episode. There's a link in the show notes explaining how. Again, head over to GDPolitics.com see you there.