November 25, 2015 3:39 PM

Reality Check from Nate Silver: Most voters barely paying attention nominating contests

Silver argues that a full 80 percent of Iowans still do not know who they’ll prefer when the caucuses start

While many in the political chattering class start to panic about the seemingly unstoppable candidacy of Manhattan real estate mogul Donald Trump, statistician and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver says we all need to take a deep breath.

Silver said "Right now, he (Trump) has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.)"

Iowans – who get the first crack at the nominating process – are notoriously late in settling on their preferred candidate, Silver noted.

“If even by New Year’s Day (a month before the Iowa caucuses, which are scheduled for Feb. 1) only about one-third of Iowa voters will have come to their final decision, the percentage must be even lower now — perhaps something like 20 percent of voters are locked in,” Silver said.

Which means a full 80 percent still do not know which candidate they’ll support when the caucuses start.

Silver’s full analysis can be found here.