Nate Silver

[Pwns]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

[Cap'n Cat]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

He's grabbing his 15 minutes. Conks will not take over. They've showed their asses too many times in the last six years as radical fascists.

[Pwns]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

He's grabbing his 15 minutes. Conks will not take over. They've showed their asses too many times in the last six years as radical fascists.

A lot of his fame comes from butthurt partisans who are offended at the suggestion that their favored party is not favored in the elections. Practically no one looking at the 2012 polls objectively in the final weeks of the election cycle thought Romney was going to win the election, but some talking heads and election strategists whined and so when inevitable result came in people acted like there was some kind of doubt and hailed Silver as some kind of real-life Nostradamus.

Same principle for this year. The republicans may not get the senate majority but they are going to make gains in congress...the writing is already on the wall Capn. People are pissed about the Obamacare monstrosity and Republicans have a history of making gains in midterm elections when a donk is president.

[Cap'n Cat]

He's grabbing his 15 minutes. Conks will not take over. They've showed their asses too many times in the last six years as radical fascists.

A lot of his fame comes from butthurt partisans who are offended at the suggestion that their favored party is not favored in the elections. Practically no one looking at the 2012 polls objectively in the final weeks of the election cycle thought Romney was going to win the election, but some talking heads and election strategists whined and so when inevitable result came in people acted like Silver was some kind of real-life Nostradamus.

Same principle for this year. The republicans may not get the senate majority but they are going to make gains in congress...the writing is already on the wall Capn. Republicans have a history of making gains in midterm elections when a donk is president.

The reverse is true, too. Different times, though. Conks have shown they are cultural Neanderfucks and they will be rejected.

[AZGrizFan]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

He's grabbing his 15 minutes. Conks will not take over. They've showed their asses too many times in the last six years as radical fascists.

As opposed to the donks showing their asses as clueless, heartless fucking morons.

[BlueHen86]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

He made his picks before the exit polls, and he correctly picked states for Obama that many had going to Romney. He was also 49/50 in the 2008 election.

We'll have to see how things turn out in November, but I'd be worried if I were the Dems. No pollster will be 100% accurate, but right now I trust Silver more than I trust anyone else.

[BlueHen86]

He's grabbing his 15 minutes. Conks will not take over. They've showed their asses too many times in the last six years as radical fascists.

A lot of his fame comes from butthurt partisans who are offended at the suggestion that their favored party is not favored in the elections. Practically no one looking at the 2012 polls objectively in the final weeks of the election cycle thought Romney was going to win the election, but some talking heads and election strategists whined and so when inevitable result came in people acted like there was some kind of doubt and hailed Silver as some kind of real-life Nostradamus.

Same principle for this year. The republicans may not get the senate majority but they are going to make gains in congress...the writing is already on the wall Capn. People are pissed about the Obamacare monstrosity and Republicans have a history of making gains in midterm elections when a donk is president.

You are either rewriting history, or you are admitting that no Republicans were objective in 2012. Many people expected Romney to win.

[Pwns]

Who besides maybe some pundits thought Romney would win in October of that year. I don't think anyone on this board did. Maybe they did in July, but not in the last month or so before the election


And so what if his predictions were before the exit polling. There were polls before the exit polls and most of the states aren't exactly Toss-ups.

[BlueHen86]

Who besides maybe some pundits thought Romney would win in October of that year. I don't think anyone on this board did. Maybe they did in July, but not in the last month or so before the election


And so what if his predictions were before the exit polling. There were polls before the exit polls and most of the states aren't exactly Toss-ups.

Not only did a lot of people think Romney would win, they gave Silver grief for picking Obama. You are misremembering the election.

Maybe Silver got lucky, well have to see how his future predictions pan out.

[Pwns]

Maybe we can agree that polls have better predictive power than whichever side isn't favored by the polls wants to admit.

And Silver wasn't lucky. Lucky would imply he did something that was difficult. It wasn't that difficult.

[BlueHen86]

Maybe we can agree that polls have better predictive power than whichever side isn't favored by the polls wants to admit.

And Silver wasn't lucky. Lucky would imply he did something that was difficult. It wasn't that difficult.

If it was that easy why doesn't everybody do it? He was 50 for 50. Did anybody else do that? There are nine swing states. Silver got them all correct. Try flipping a coin 9 times and calling it correct each time.

If it was as easy as you say everyone would do it and Silver wouldn't be famous. It was a big deal in 2008 when he was 49 for 50. Like him or not, give credit where it's due.

[Pwns]

Again...use the 2008 results to predict 2012 and you get 48 of 50 correct. And he used polling data to make predictions, so even if the difference is within the margin of error it's a reasonably good bet. There is nothing that remarkable when you think about it.

[kalm]

Who besides maybe some pundits thought Romney would win in October of that year. I don't think anyone on this board did. Maybe they did in July, but not in the last month or so before the election


And so what if his predictions were before the exit polling. There were polls before the exit polls and most of the states aren't exactly Toss-ups.

Not only did a lot of people think Romney would win, they gave Silver grief for picking Obama. You are misremembering the election.

Maybe Silver got lucky, well have to see how his future predictions pan out.

This. Conks didn't like Silver that election.

[BlueHen86]

Again...use the 2008 results to predict 2012 and you get 48 of 50 correct. And he used polling data to make predictions, so even if the difference is within the margin of error it's a reasonably good bet. There is nothing that remarkable when you think about it.

Then why didn't everybody do it? And what about 2008? The 2004 data wouldn't have predicted that.

Once again, if it was as easy as you say nobody would know who Nate Silver is.

[Pwns]

Again...use the 2008 results to predict 2012 and you get 48 of 50 correct. And he used polling data to make predictions, so even if the difference is within the margin of error it's a reasonably good bet. There is nothing that remarkable when you think about it.

Then why didn't everybody do it? And what about 2008? The 2004 data wouldn't have predi
cted that.

Once again, if it was as easy as you say nobody would know who Nate Silver is.

He's famous partly because of mass ignorance and partly because of people who downplay the predictive power of polls. You say it's the equivalent of calling 9 coin flips. That's simply not true. Not when you have multiple polls that show the same guy winning a given state. Look at what the most recent polls said for each state when Silver made his prediction compare them to the actual results. I bet it predicts every state correctly.

[kalm]

Then why didn't everybody do it? And what about 2008? The 2004 data wouldn't have predi
cted that.

Once again, if it was as easy as you say nobody would know who Nate Silver is.

He's famous partly because of mass ignorance and partly because of people who downplay the predictive power of polls. You say it's the equivalent of calling 9 coin flips. That's simply not true. Not when you have multiple polls that show the same guy winning a given state. Look at what the most recent polls said for each state when Silver made his prediction compare them to the actual results. I bet it predicts every state correctly.

Some of the people who made Silver a star were the Republican pollsters who disagreed with him.

[JohnStOnge]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

I think it's also probably true that if you'd have gone by what the pre election polls were saying you'd have been right. Republicans were in denial trying to argue as to why the pre election polls were wrong due to the turnout models they were using, etc. Carl Rove was prominent in that regard. But those polling people know what they are doing. If you were watching the pre election polls you could see that Obama was going to win. I doubt it you remember it but I was consistently saying that prior to the election. The polling people have a track record. They are good. Especially in modern times.

Having said all that what I heard is that this guy predicted a 60% chance that Republicans will take the Senate (http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christiner ... 4-n1813353" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). That's not all that much better than a coin flip. I don't think he's predicting that it's a done deal.

[BlueHen86]

Then why didn't everybody do it? And what about 2008? The 2004 data wouldn't have predi
cted that.

Once again, if it was as easy as you say nobody would know who Nate Silver is.

He's famous partly because of mass ignorance and partly because of people who downplay the predictive power of polls. You say it's the equivalent of calling 9 coin flips. That's simply not true. Not when you have multiple polls that show the same guy winning a given state. Look at what the most recent polls said for each state when Silver made his prediction compare them to the actual results. I bet it predicts every state correctly.

But not every pollster agreed on every state. Some states were clearly red or blue, but other states were mixed. Silver got the mixed states correct. All of them. Who else did that? If what he did was that easy, more people would do it.

When he picked the 2012 race for Obama, the GOP immediately tried to down play his prediction. Seems kind of odd that they would go to the effort if the call was as obvious as you say it was. There were a lot of people that thought Romney would win, I don't know where you get the idea that everyone knew it was over.

I know the guy has his detractors, but your the first person I've seen criticize him for being right.

[BlueHen86]

So Nate Silver is predicting the republicans will retake the senate in November, and now a lot of dems that loved him in 2012 hate him.

I'm still trying to understand what's so remarkable about his election predictions. He got all 50 states right in the '12 elections? Whoop dee freaking do. If you used the 2008 results to predict 2012 results you would've gotten 48 of the 50 correct. If you went by exit polls you would've guessed every state correctly.

I think it's also probably true that if you'd have gone by what the pre election polls were saying you'd have been right. Republicans were in denial trying to argue as to why the pre election polls were wrong due to the turnout models they were using, etc. Carl Rove was prominent in that regard. But those polling people know what they are doing. If you were watching the pre election polls you could see that Obama was going to win. I doubt it you remember it but I was consistently saying that prior to the election. The polling people have a track record. They are good. Especially in modern times.

Having said all that what I heard is that this guy predicted a 60% chance that Republicans will take the Senate (http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christiner ... 4-n1813353" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). That's not all that much better than a coin flip. I don't think he's predicting that it's a done deal.

At the time people on here (and elsewhere) were arguing about which pre election pollster we should believe. For example: some people liked Rasmussen, some like Gallup etc. It's not as if every pollster agreed and all Silver did was parrot their results. He was able to sift through the different polls and figure out which ones to use. That's the hard part.

[Pwns]

I think it's also probably true that if you'd have gone by what the pre election polls were saying you'd have been right. Republicans were in denial trying to argue as to why the pre election polls were wrong due to the turnout models they were using, etc. Carl Rove was prominent in that regard. But those polling people know what they are doing. If you were watching the pre election polls you could see that Obama was going to win. I doubt it you remember it but I was consistently saying that prior to the election. The polling people have a track record. They are good. Especially in modern times.

Having said all that what I heard is that this guy predicted a 60% chance that Republicans will take the Senate (http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christiner ... 4-n1813353" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). That's not all that much better than a coin flip. I don't think he's predicting that it's a done deal.

At the time people on here (and elsewhere) were arguing about which pre election pollster we should believe. For example: some people liked Rasmussen, some like Gallup etc. It's not as if every pollster agreed and all Silver did was parrot their results. He was able to sift through the different polls and figure out which ones to use. That's the hard part.

But how many states were there where the polls were predicting different winners? That's the question. Even in states that are considered battleground states, how many were there actual disparities between which candidate had the lead?

[BlueHen86]

At the time people on here (and elsewhere) were arguing about which pre election pollster we should believe. For example: some people liked Rasmussen, some like Gallup etc. It's not as if every pollster agreed and all Silver did was parrot their results. He was able to sift through the different polls and figure out which ones to use. That's the hard part.

But how many states were there where the polls were predicting different winners? That's the question. Even in states that are considered battleground states, how many were there actual disparities between which candidate had the lead?

There were a probably about 4 or 5 states that kept flipping, or the pollsters disagreed. I know that Ohio was one. There were enough electoral votes in question that the election was still considered to be in doubt. I also recall that there were a couple of states that Silver called for Obama even though polls showed Romney with the lead. That was part of the reason that the GOP didn't like him.