Tag Archives: Nate Silver

538 Reason The Left Is Going To Explode

Posted on March 26, 2014 | 6 comments

538As I mature in my political dialogs, I’m really trying to control the partisan in me and rely more and more on data.

It’s hard to dispute the success of Nate Silver inn 2012.

But THIS is going to make democrats and the left in general go crazy:

Our new forecast goes a half-step further: We think the Republicans are now slight favorites to win at least six seats and capture the chamber. The Democrats’ position has deteriorated somewhat since last summer, with President Obama’s approval ratings down to 42 or 43 percent from an average of about 45 percent before. Furthermore, as compared with 2010 or 2012, the GOP has done a better job of recruiting credible candidates, with some exceptions.

More:

Silver gave Republicans a 60 percent chance of wresting the Senate out of Harry Reid’s hands—a big blow to the final two years of the Obama presidency.

 

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Posted in Election, Politics: National

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NY Times Loses Nate Silver

Posted on July 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

Wow!

Nate Silver, the blogger whose unerring predictions made him perhaps the most important political byline at The New York Times during the last presidential election, is leaving the paper to join ESPN. An official announcement is expected later today.

Silver will relocate his blog, FiveThirtyEight, and will also be a contributor to Keith Olbermann’s new weeknight talk show, according to the Times. He’ll also be a regular presence on ABC, ESPN’s sister network under the Disney umbrella, and will appear on programming including Academy Awards coverage, according to Politico’s Mike Allen.

I’m not a fan of ESPN really, maybe the cable channels but the web presence of ESPN has turned me off for the last several years.

But this is big news.

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Posted in Fun

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NC Governor 9th Most Conservative Republican Governor

Posted on April 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

Pat McCrory

It turns out that our new republican governor, Pat McCrory, is fairly conservative:

Gov. Pat McCrory is among the nation’s more conservative Republican governors, according to Nate Silver, the political blogger and prognosticator for The New York Times.

In an article about the nation’s 30 Republican governors, Silver attempts to measure them on their conservatism – no easy task since they don’t have a voting record like members of Congress do. But Silver measures them based on public statements, the identity of their donors, and where applicable, their congressional voting record.

He rates McCrory as the ninth most conservative Republican. He is more conservative than Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Ohio Gov John Kasich, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, among others.

To McCrory’s right are Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Idaho Gov. Butch Otter.

I surprised by some of the names.  For example, I would have thought that Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal would have been to his right.  Same for Kasich and Rick Scott.  On the other side, I would have guessed McDonnell, Branstad and maybe Pence to be more liberal.

Not sure what it means, especially since McCrory has only been in office for less than 4 months, but….Nate says so.

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Posted in Politics: National

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The Final Bell – Nate Silver Destroys Karl Rove

Posted on November 7, 2012 | 7 comments

But I beat Rove too.

I’m calling Florida for Obama.  The state will have to have a recount but I don’t think it matter; Obama wins the state.  That makes Silver 51 out of 51 races correct.  Rove came in at 45 of 51.  Which makes it sound closer than it was.  The two differed on only 6 races and Silver won all 6 of them.

I, however, got 3 of them right; I lost Virginia, Florida and Colorado.  I feel pretty good, I was only VERY wrong on Colorado.  Florida and Virginia were very close.  I did pick the Badger State to flip thinking that Walker would save the day, so I get that one wrong.

Clearly we are going to have to watch 538 going forward.

 

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Posted in Elections 2012

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Update – 10:00

Posted on November 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

I got my first one wrong, though I admit, I only picked Wisconsin for Romney in the same way I pick an upset in the NCAA tourney.  I thought that maybe Walker’s ground game would save the day.

However, there shouldn’t be a surprise anywhere yet.

In the head to head match-up, Silver is up by one over Rove; New Hampshire went for Obama.

I’m on track to be right; Obama wins.

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Posted in Elections 2012

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Updated Electoral College: Silver vs. Rove vs. Pino

Posted on November 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

I was reviewing the data and adding some additional information when I realized I put Florida in the wrong group; Florida is a “contested state.”  Rove and Silver have it going different from each other.

Additionally I added my picks, the real value [updated as the races are called] and then Silver’s prediction confidence.

If you look at Silver as a basketball player and use his confidence % as his shooting percentage from different places on the floor, he has a 45.5% of hitting every “contested shot” excluding Florida.  That success rate drops to 24.2 if you include Florida.

That means there’s a better than 50 – 50 chance he gets one wrong.

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Posted in Elections 2012

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Silver vs. Rove

Posted on November 6, 2012 | 2 comments

Not that we don’t have enough “they vs. we” going on through this election, but I wanted to set up one more; the Battle of the Maps.  The darling of the Left is the most obvious contender.  He’s new, young, fresh and, perhaps, most accurate.  It is surprisingly difficult to find other polling outfits that actually predict the whole map.  Most of them put the states into buckets leaving the hard picks as “toss ups.”  So, I went with the guy that folks on the left hate; Karl Rove.

The result is shown above.

The two guys are remarkably close.  Of 51 contests, they diverge on only 5.  Those five states are listed up top; Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire and Colorado.

The next set are states that they agree on but could be wrong on.  Most surprisingly are the states of Florida and North Carolina.  I wouldn’t have guessed that Silver put them both in the red side.  The other three, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are pretty close to a sure thing in my mind; I don’t think Romney takes any of the three.  The closest state in play there is Wisconsin and the other two have been listed, so I keep those three listed separate as well.

The remaining states are pretty close to locks.  If forced to choose an upset from each side I’d go with Minnesota or Nevada in the Blue and Arizona from the Red.

Interesting contest to be sure.

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Posted in Elections 2012

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