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Notes -
Based on the information available at the time, that was a reasonable claim. Trump was a highly unconventional and unpopular candidate, running against an incumbent party at a time of (relative) peace and economic stability. Silver always says, that his analyses that are 3/6/12/18 months before the election, that those analyses assume a next-day election, that he doesn't price in the chance of poll numbers changing or events occurring over the remaining time - because that IS pure punditry. Some people did, of course, anticipate the convergence in poll numbers over 2016 - but what evidence was that based on? Nothing but the same old 'vibes'.
Silver got it wrong, everybody got it wrong, the polls were wrong in 2016, but ever since there's been this contrarian strain of the discourse that wants to argue that the polls were right, or whatever. Look at some of the state polling, which was wildly wrong, in some of the swing states by 10 points or more. (Similar happened in a few of the Democratic primary states Bernie was not expected to win.) In fairness, I seem to remember Silver owning up to being partially-wrong and attempting to explain why. But it doesn't mean he was right.
I guess you can argue that polling is same-day or whatever, but if polling experts all say the same thing for six months and then at the end still don't predict the correct outcome, then what value is polling? What, Silver gave Trump 30% at the last possible moment, therefore he was "reasonable"? That's all unfalsifiable augury, because as long as there's any >0% odds of an outcome Silver """predicted""" it. It's not any different from what you dismiss as "vibes".
The polls were also wrong in 2012. In fact, the error was larger in 2012, it just didn't end up changing the result.
The point is not that the polls were right. The point is that if you want to know how people are going to vote in November of 2016, there's only so much you can determine by asking them in February of 2016. There's a limit to what polling can determine, to how accurate polls can be, and that accuracy will be better the day before the election rather than six months before. As to what the point of this kind of polling is - if you're reading it, it's for you. It fills newspapers and websites, which can then sell ads. The quality of such polls is not great - after all, you're getting it for free. There's good polling out there, but it's not being used to fill space between ads, people pay money for it so they can use it to guide campaign strategy, marketing decisions, etc.
Yes, it is in fact, very reasonable to say that there isn't enough evidence to commit to one side or another.
No offense, but if you don't understand statistics and probability, maybe you really shouldn't be reading Nate Silver. Statistics by it's own nature cannot give certain predictions of the future.
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