Nate Silver Blew It Bigly on the Election – Can His Brand Recover?
“Nate was arrogant. His numbers were all over the place. The title of ‘guru’ is now gone,” media pundit Joe Concha tells TheWrap
Brian Flood | November 9, 2016 @ 4:05 PM
Last Updated: November 10, 2016 @ 11:25 AM
FiveThirtyEight
In 2012, when Mitt Romney seemed close to defeating President Obama, Democrats took to tweeting the slogan “Keep Calm and Trust in Nate Silver.”
The New York Times prognosticator called all 50 states correctly, and leveraged his fame as the nation’s predictor-in-chief into a new role at ESPN, where he founded the site FiveThirtyEight.
But after Thursday’s win for Donald Trump, the days of trusting in Nate Silver may be over. Most pollsters and data journalists were wrong, too. But none have his reputation to live up to.
“Nate was arrogant. His numbers were all over the place. The title of ‘guru’ is now gone,” The Hill media reporter Joe Concha told TheWrap. He said Silver’s career will survive, but “never again will he be held in any revered regard.”
On Monday, Silver predicted that Trump had a 1-in-3 chance of defeating Hillary Clinton. Some other pundits thought Silver was being too generous: Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim accused him of “putting his thumb on the scales” to give Trump a better chance of wining.
(Grim tweeted an apology to Silver on Election Night, saying there was “far more uncertainty than we were accounting for.”)
By Tuesday morning, Silver’s site reported that Clinton had a 71.4 percent chance of winning the election.
That was a huge improvement over his numbers earlier in the year: Back in January, Silver couldn’t make up his mind on where Trump stood.
“I don’t think his chances are zero. You have to be very careful about saying they’re zero, but I think they’re lower than 20 [percent] or 25 percent. Maybe they’re 10 percent. Maybe they’re 8 percent. I’m not sure, somewhere in that range,” Silver told Adweek.
The credibility questions arrive at an odd time for FiveThirtyEight.
ESPN shut down Grantland, its sports and pop culture website, abruptly in 2015 after the company had a nasty split with its founder, Bill Simmons. Grantland had a niche fan base and a staff of extremely talented writers — just like FiveThirtyEight.
But Grantland was relevant every day, while nobody will care about presidential polling for at least three years. FiveThirtyEight has branched out in other ways, covering sports data and even ranking burritos, so it clearly won’t limit itself to politics.
Silver is the face of the data reporting, which had been seen as one of the only growth sectors in journalism. After this election, the threat to it may go well beyond one site.
“I’ve believed in data for 30 years in politics and data died tonight,” GOP strategist Mike Murphy tweeted. “I could not have been more wrong about this election.”
More than 16.5 million unique users, an all-time record, visited FiveThirtyEight on Election Night.
14 Stars Who Vowed to Leave America If Donald Trump Wins Election (Photos)
It's not uncommon for people to joke/threaten about leaving the U.S. if the "wrong" person becomes president. But Donald Trump has Hollywood in such a froth that loads of celebrities are now talking about pulling up stakes. Here's a small collection of them, ranging from silly jokes to serious plans.
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Lena Dunham has been one of the most active celebrity Clinton supporters out there, but she says she'll move to Canada if Trump wins: "I know a lovely place in Vancouver, and I can get my work done from there."
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While promoting "The Hateful Eight," Samuel L. Jacksontold Jimmy Kimmel that in the wake of a Trump victory he would "move my black ass to South Africa."
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Trump's Super Tuesday victory in the primaries left Miley Cyrus distraught. She hasn't said where she'll go, but promised on Instagram that "I am moving if this is my president! I don't say things I don't mean!"
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Cher has a history of feuding with Trump even before he announced his candidacy and has been often asked about what she thinks about his attempts to become President. Chertweeted that if he wins she will "move to Jupiter."
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If Cher does get a SpaceX flight to another planet, she might have Jon Stewart as her window-seat buddy, as he joked to People Magazine that he “would consider getting in a rocket and going to another planet, because clearly this planet’s gone bonkers.”
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Even before Trump officially got nominated, she promised on The View that she would leave for Canada if any Republican got elected: "I literally bought my ticket, I swear."
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Natasha Lyonne might not leave the country, but when asked by Starz where she might go, she said she might check herself into a mental hospital.
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George Lopez told TMZ that he would move south of the border if Trump won, and that other Latinos would come with him: "If he wins, he won't have to worry about immigration; we'll all go back."
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Al Sharpton said in February that he had "reserved his ticket" to leave if Trump won and that he would support anyone necessary to beat him.
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"House of Cards" star Neve Campbell is a natural-born Canadian citizen, so for her moving to another country is easy, and she's said she's ready to do it.
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Chelsea Handler told Kelly Ripa on "Live!" that her plans to move aren't just words. She has already bought a house in Spain and is ready to go if necessary.
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Barbra Streisand has been hitting the campaign trail hard for Hillary, but she too is ready to abandon ship if her campaign fails. She said she would decide between moving to Australia and Canada if Trump takes office.
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In the final days of the campaign, Bryan Cranston added his name to the exodus list: "I would definitely move. ... It's not real to me that that would happen. I hope to God it won't."
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But some threats to leave America are a bit more tongue-in-cheek. Take Spike Lee, who vowed to respond to a Trump victory by "moving back to the republic of Brooklyn."
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Bryan Cranston, Miley Cyrus and others may be headed overseas if they don’t get their way on Election Day
It's not uncommon for people to joke/threaten about leaving the U.S. if the "wrong" person becomes president. But Donald Trump has Hollywood in such a froth that loads of celebrities are now talking about pulling up stakes. Here's a small collection of them, ranging from silly jokes to serious plans.