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Joe Scarborough

My (semi) apology to Nate Silver

The Obama-Romney race proved to be the least fluid in a generation. As Mr. Silver noted this morning, public opinion surveys remained consistent from June through Election Day. More importantly for Nate, the state polls that he depended on the most did what Rasmussen and Gallup did not — they got the election right. That meant that Nate Silver got the election right. …

Since the president’s reelection, liberals have been cluttering my Twitter feed with demands that I apologize to Nate for dismissing his 74.8374629% prediction in October that Barack Obama would win. I have ignored those requests because as is usually the case for ideologues on Twitter, their rage is unfocused and based in ignorance. These critics conveniently forget that I consistently predicted an Obama win throughout the year and even said on Election Day that the president’s stubborn lead in swing state polls would doom Romney.

I won’t apologize to Mr. Silver for predicting an outcome that I had also been predicting for a year. But I do need to tell Nate I’m sorry for leaning in too hard and lumping him with pollsters whose methodology is as rigorous as the Simpsons’ strip mall physician, Dr. Nick. For those sins (and a multitude of others that I’m sure I don’t even know about), I am sorry.

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Can we get some Nate Silver predictions on what the economy is going to look like under 4 more years of his bf?

Kataklysmic on November 21, 2012 at 9:47 AM

I wish people would stop treating him as some kind of oracle. Anyone looking at the RCP averages would’ve predicted an Obama victory, too.

changer1701 on November 21, 2012 at 10:02 AM

Silver? Hasn’t he been chosen as the pope of predictions and the hope for all gaia worshippers?

tommy71 on November 21, 2012 at 10:23 AM

Let’s recap shall we:

Part of me wants to look at Nate Silver, all the D+over9000 polls, and go, “Those poor SOBs won’t know what hit them in 6 days.”
And then I think about it some more: The Democrats figure if Five Thirty Eight and all them are wrong, and Romney wins, it can be like 2000, where a bunch of tl;dr about the Electoral College and state laws about deadlines for certifying the vote were turned into a rallying cry the Left can use to survive while out of power. They hope a lot of tl;dr about polling samples and likely voter filters as opposed to the actual vote can be used as a “Romney stole the election” cry to carry them into ’14 and ’16. It won’t hit the Left until the AP calls some state that they were assured by their masters they were going to win. Oh, a lightworker would never spend an election season lying, so they can’t get mad at the lying figures on the Left.
Sekhmet on October 31, 2012 at 2:52 PM

Silver, apparently spurred by this criticism and others, made this wager to Scarborough on Twitter on Thursday: “If you think it’s a toss-up, let’s bet. If Obama wins, you donate $1,000 to the American Red Cross. If Romney wins, I do. Deal?”
How about instead you retire from predicting Presidential election outcomes, Nate?
Doughboy on November 1, 2012 at 11:52 AM

Like I said on another thread, Nate Silver is backtracking:
Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
We have Obama as ~80% likely to win Electoral College if popular vote is a tie. 98% if it’s O+1. 30% if it’s R+1.
So if the current D+5 national polls showing a tied race are off by a tiny % (likely), Obama’s chances drop to, er, 30%….imagine what they drop to if Romney wins by 2…LOL
I actually feel sorry for all the libtards who put their faith in this guy.
Norwegian on November 4, 2012 at 2:32 PM

You guys are *still* pathetic.

lostmotherland on November 21, 2012 at 10:34 AM

lostmotherland, I remember arguing with that “Nate Silver is backtracking” guy. He was totally misreading what Silver said on Twitter. There was no backtracking at all. He was explaining how the model showed Obama as the electoral favorite if there is a popular vote tie.

Yup, lots of insults were thrown at Nate Silver on Hotair… There should be a collective apology.

agirlacamera on November 21, 2012 at 10:44 AM

You guys are *still* pathetic.

lostmotherland on November 21, 2012 at 10:34 AM

Flat-earther rogerb is suspiciously absent. You’d think he’d have a field day on this.

Then again he’s incapable of posting in context and unedited comments that are actually relevant.

lester on November 21, 2012 at 11:08 AM

More importantly for Nate, the state polls that he depended on the most did what Rasmussen and Gallup did not — they got the election right. That meant that Nate Silver got the election right. …

so Silver is a genius because he correctly predicted that the state polls would be correct?

well, I’ll be!

Joseph Russo III on November 21, 2012 at 11:53 AM

Other people predicted all 50 states correctly too. And one guy, not Silver, even got the vote % in the states correct.

They are not kos kid liberals working for the NYT though, so they don’t get anointed King Prognosticator by the media.

Moesart on November 21, 2012 at 12:12 PM

Scarborough is a tool, Silver is a con man who takes credit for other peoples polls, they deserve each other.

clearbluesky on November 21, 2012 at 12:50 PM

I wish people would stop treating him as some kind of oracle. Anyone looking at the RCP averages would’ve predicted an Obama victory, too.

changer1701 on November 21, 2012 at 10:02 AM

Then why isn’t there anybody else with his record? You can’t just believe something and make it so. Empirical analysis eludes the unscientific crowd.

Where are your predictions in writing since “anyone” could do it. What do you do for a living? Why aren’t you the one person who is on record as getting only one prediction wrong this election but Nate Silver is?

I know. I know. You’re too busy doing Civil War reenactments.

Capitalist Hog on November 21, 2012 at 1:07 PM

Other people predicted all 50 states correctly too. And one guy, not Silver, even got the vote % in the states correct.

They are not kos kid liberals working for the NYT though, so they don’t get anointed King Prognosticator by the media.

Moesart on November 21, 2012 at 12:12 PM

Do these other people have names?

Capitalist Hog on November 21, 2012 at 1:09 PM