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I cant really understand the criticism behind his methods. Sure, he gives a prediction of an Obama win and perhaps that is threatening, but lets look at his track record:
2008 elections - Correctly predicted the Presidential election in 49 of the 50 states. He was incorrect in Indiana, which Obama won by a 1% margin of victory.
2010 elections - In the Senate, he predicted 34 of the 36 elections correctly. He was incorrect on Colorado, which was won by the Incumbent by less than 1 percentage point. The House elections were a little shakier, but still pretty solid. He predicted 54 seats, but the actual outcome was 63. In defense of this, polling for the House seems significantly thinner than it does for Senate or President. I live in Minnesota, and the 8th district was a surprise when a challenger ousted a long time incumbent. In this case, however, almost no polling was conducted...so there isnt a lot of data to run with. He also correctly predicted 36 of the 37 Governor elections. Not bad.
Now, when you consider the numbers...its not bulletproof. Could he be wrong about the Presidential election? Sure, but it seems unlikely. When you consider that the area he did the worst in was the House of Representatives predictions due to a lack of polling, and he was still pretty accurate overall....it would give an indication that he clearly knows what he is doing.
There is far, far more polling for the Presidential election than any of the other races he has predicted....so it would be very surprising if he was way off base.
Personally I think he has shown some credibility / insight with his polling, but essentially he is about 2 for 2 in terms of election cycles. I'd need to see the same results from him or his method for a good 4-5 election cycles before I put too much weight in his accuracy.
I guess we'll find out. I do read his postings and they seem as informed as many others. Polls have proven widely inaccurate over the last few election cycles because they don't acount for people without home phones, early votes right, and a lot of other things.
Mr. Silver does what I tell people to do all the time. Take all the polls, throw them all together. Take the highest, and the lowest for each candidate, and throw them out. Now take an average, and thats about as accurate as you can get.
I think Obama will win Ohio, due to Romneys non support for the auto bail out, and the fact that some Ohioans see him as a Michigander, and they don't like folks from Michigan in the lower part of the state.
I think Romney will win Virginia, Colorado, will likely come down to Hispanics. Florida is definitely Romneys. Iowa is a toss up I think, and I think Obama will win Wisconsin. I'm not sure about New Hampshire.
Truth is, its all just guessing, and just like odds makers look at sporting events, they are looking at this one the same way. And as the saying goes "any given Sunday", this is like "any given Tuesday"
Popular vote, even "likely voter" national votes don't mean squat.
He's not a "pollster," or just a political pundit--he's a really gifted statistician. He started out by inventing a forecasting system to predict the performance and career of major league baseball players, and sold it for a huge chunk of change (plus managed it) to Baseball Prospectus. On a lark, he applied the same type of method to sort and analyze the data generated by a wide variety of polling firms on political races--he combined the data, and used it to predict the statistical likelihood of different outcomes for the individual state presidential and senate races in 2008. As it turns out, he accurately predicted the winner in 49 of 50 states for the presidential race (he was off by 1% in Indiana) and all 35 Senate races.
The OP listed his outcomes in the 2010 races--I think you are correct that the issue may have been thinner polling, but even with that, he was a million times more accurate than anyone else. After his success with those elections, the NYT offered to host his blog.
It makes me laugh when people here call him a partisan hack--Silver is all about the numbers, and not the issues or spin. I expect his results to mirror that of the 2008 election because he has enough data to work with to get solid results.
But here's the thing: Silver isn't a pundit. He doesn't adjust his model once a campaign gets underway -- even if he sees a way to refine it -- because he believes a model should be consistent in its methodology throughout a campaign. It's the model that weights certain polls more heavily than others – based on pollsters' past track records – it's the model that weights the state polls, and it's the model that gives decreasing weight to the economic data as the election grows nearer. No model is perfect -- as Nate Silver would be the first to admit -- but his 538 model is the result of years of statistical numbers-crunching. Having created it long before this election got underway, Silver simply inputs the data from every poll published – not selecting which confirm his view of the race – and the economic data, and runs thousands of simulations per day using those numbers.
The guy says what his model predicts. It will be either right or it will be wrong - but his track record is (so far at least) EXCELLENT.
The Wingnuts need to face the fact that just because someone's model predicts something they don't like, doesn't make them a "partisan hack". It simply means their model predicts an outcome they don't like.
That's the part that irks me. There are no areas/commentary on the mans blog where he says "Obama is winning, and OH LAWD IS THAT EVER GOOD NEWS FOR AMERICA!"
He supports him, yes....but EVERY SINGLE person reporting political analysis in one form or another has an opinion. If you're that deeply invested into some form of subject matter, you are going to have a preference...bottom line. Would he honestly put his name and credibility on the line and simply cherry pick because he would prefer a second term to a Romney presidency?
If he was completely off the mark, he would lose credibility completely...and he has been a pretty strong focus in this election.
I cant really understand the criticism behind his methods. Sure, he gives a prediction of an Obama win and perhaps that is threatening, but lets look at his track record:
2008 elections - Correctly predicted the Presidential election in 49 of the 50 states. He was incorrect in Indiana, which Obama won by a 1% margin of victory.
2010 elections - In the Senate, he predicted 34 of the 36 elections correctly. He was incorrect on Colorado, which was won by the Incumbent by less than 1 percentage point. The House elections were a little shakier, but still pretty solid. He predicted 54 seats, but the actual outcome was 63. In defense of this, polling for the House seems significantly thinner than it does for Senate or President. I live in Minnesota, and the 8th district was a surprise when a challenger ousted a long time incumbent. In this case, however, almost no polling was conducted...so there isnt a lot of data to run with. He also correctly predicted 36 of the 37 Governor elections. Not bad.
Now, when you consider the numbers...its not bulletproof. Could he be wrong about the Presidential election? Sure, but it seems unlikely. When you consider that the area he did the worst in was the House of Representatives predictions due to a lack of polling, and he was still pretty accurate overall....it would give an indication that he clearly knows what he is doing.
There is far, far more polling for the Presidential election than any of the other races he has predicted....so it would be very surprising if he was way off base.
Silver is doubtless a sharp guy, Univ of Chicago econ grad if I'm not mistaken. But he also doubtless is a partisan and subject to the twin bugaboos of wishful thinking and denial. The 2010 prediction of 54-55 R gain in the house was quite far off from the actualy gain of 63. It seems plausible that history could repeat itself in 2012.
It's not really worth a debate, because we will know the real answer in a few days.
When statistics report different results than Republicans want, they say they are fudged. Now, it's Nate Silver's turn, so, he's being accused of deliberately skewing the numbers — no doubt as part of a grand conspiracy also involving the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Gallup before their poll flipped and Area 51.
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