With Election Day 2012 finally in sight, national attention is riveted on the possible electoral outcomes of the presidential vote. A useful interactive on the New York Times website makes it easier to envision the implications of losses and victories in various swing states. Click on the image to go to the site, then use the “next” button to take advantage of its interactive features.
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Voters pinning their hopes on Mitt Romney’s purported momentum may find that a visit to Nate Silver‘s blog, FiveThirtyEight, puts them in a sour mood. Silver, a youngish statistician whose 2008 predictions were highly accurate, has consistently assigned President Obama favorable odds of victory. Even as isolated polls show his challenger pulling even with Obama in several key states, the margin by which Silver’s quantitative model favors Obama has been increasing. (Silver assigned Obama a 77% chance of winning with 299 electoral votes, as of my site visit earlier in the day.)
Not surprisingly, Silver has come under attack from the right and finds himself the center of eleventh-hour controversy. The key charges, defenses, and countercharges are contained in the various links below. The weirdest charge is that of Dean Chambers, who insinuates that Silver is too effeminate to be a competent predictor of the presidential odds. Also discernible is an anti-intellectual discomfort with hard numbers.
Dylan Byers, Nate Silver: One-Term Celebrity?, Politico.
Brett LoGlurato, People are flipping out over Politico’s attack on Nate Silver, Business Insider.
Ezra Klein, The Nate Silver Backlash, The Washington Post.
Robert Schlesinger, Mitt Romney’s Electoral Problem and the War on Nate Silver, US News and World Report.
Charles P Pierce, The Enemies of Nate Silver, Esquire.
