Yellowdogtexan
06-13-2008, 08:40 AM
I like numbers, demographic trends and math. One of the sites that I have been following is http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/(these are the numbers of electoral votes that are available). The site has been very accurate as to predictions on the primaries and has a very mathetmatical approach to crunching the numbers that is well done. It seems that Poblano is actually a baseball writer who used his understanding of statistics and math to develope the models on the fivethrityeight.com site http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/baseball-analyst-draws-fans-by-crunching-election-numbers-347/For six years, Nate Silver has used statistics and formulas to project baseball players’ performances before the season has begun. Now he’s gaining wide attention by applying similar statistical techniques to the presidential election, by projecting the breakdown of the Electoral College.
Mr. Silver, who developed the Pecota projection system for research company Baseball Prospectus, began analyzing the 2008 election last October in his spare time, under the pseudonym Poblano at Daily Kos. His postings combined his love of numbers and his support of Sen. Barack Obama, and quickly gained a following among readers of the liberal blog. That inspired him in March to launch his own politics site: fivethirtyeight.com, named after the number of voters in the Electoral College. For months, he retained his Poblano identity. Only on Friday, with a New York Post column under his byline set to appear over the weekend, did the 30-year-old Chicago resident reveal his true identity to his readers.
Even anonymously, he’d gathered a following: by Mr. Silver’s count, 20,000 to 30,000 unique visitors each day, including prominent political bloggers. Despite all the attention, he expects the site to remain a hobby — though it does carry ads — and still works at Baseball Prospectus full-time. (Mr. Silver’s aware the site’s name and focus will make November a bit of a “death sentence.”)
The site’s appeal, in this numbers-intensive election year, is its marriage of numerical analysis and spiffy charting, attaching an aura of certainty and order to what has been a chaotic Democratic primary. The site also allows political junkies to track the shifting November prospects of Sens. Obama, Clinton and McCain via charts and graphs — although the exercise is extremely speculative this far ahead of the election, with the Democratic primary still being contested. At last check, the site projects Sen. Obama defeating Sen. McCain in the Electoral College, 273 to 265. It forecasts Sen. Clinton beating Sen. McCain by a wider margin, 291 to 247.
Between the graphics is a blog in which Mr. Silver seeks to answer interesting numerical questions that occur to him, much like Baseball Prospectus writers do. For instance, Is 2,118 really the number of delegates needed to clinch the primary? — maybe not — or Which candidate has been attacked the most by opponents’ press releases? — Sen. Obama, followed closely by Sen. McCain.
Of particular interest are Mr. Silver’s efforts to rank pollsters by accuracy, and weight their polls accordingly; and to supplement those polls with his own electoral projections based on demographics and prior voting patterns. “I did think there was room for a more sophisticated way of handling these things,” Mr. Silver told me.
He gained attention for beating most pollsters with his projections in North Carolina and Indiana, though he whiffed on Kentucky, underselling Sen. Clinton’s huge win there.
“I think it is interesting and, in a lot of ways, I’m not surprised that his predictions came closer to the result than the pollsters did,” Brian F. Schaffner, research director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, and a numerically minded blogger in his own right, told me. Charles Franklin, co-developer of Pollster.com and a professor at the University of Wisconsin, said of Mr. Silver, “I think he’s ‘playing’ with the data in a very constructive, open and interesting manner.”The fivethirtyeight.com website is very interesting and is now including predictions on Senate races.
Again, I like math and I am interested to see the math involved here. So far this site has been more accurate than most of the pollsters and it will be fun to see if these formulas hold up for the general election.
Mr. Silver, who developed the Pecota projection system for research company Baseball Prospectus, began analyzing the 2008 election last October in his spare time, under the pseudonym Poblano at Daily Kos. His postings combined his love of numbers and his support of Sen. Barack Obama, and quickly gained a following among readers of the liberal blog. That inspired him in March to launch his own politics site: fivethirtyeight.com, named after the number of voters in the Electoral College. For months, he retained his Poblano identity. Only on Friday, with a New York Post column under his byline set to appear over the weekend, did the 30-year-old Chicago resident reveal his true identity to his readers.
Even anonymously, he’d gathered a following: by Mr. Silver’s count, 20,000 to 30,000 unique visitors each day, including prominent political bloggers. Despite all the attention, he expects the site to remain a hobby — though it does carry ads — and still works at Baseball Prospectus full-time. (Mr. Silver’s aware the site’s name and focus will make November a bit of a “death sentence.”)
The site’s appeal, in this numbers-intensive election year, is its marriage of numerical analysis and spiffy charting, attaching an aura of certainty and order to what has been a chaotic Democratic primary. The site also allows political junkies to track the shifting November prospects of Sens. Obama, Clinton and McCain via charts and graphs — although the exercise is extremely speculative this far ahead of the election, with the Democratic primary still being contested. At last check, the site projects Sen. Obama defeating Sen. McCain in the Electoral College, 273 to 265. It forecasts Sen. Clinton beating Sen. McCain by a wider margin, 291 to 247.
Between the graphics is a blog in which Mr. Silver seeks to answer interesting numerical questions that occur to him, much like Baseball Prospectus writers do. For instance, Is 2,118 really the number of delegates needed to clinch the primary? — maybe not — or Which candidate has been attacked the most by opponents’ press releases? — Sen. Obama, followed closely by Sen. McCain.
Of particular interest are Mr. Silver’s efforts to rank pollsters by accuracy, and weight their polls accordingly; and to supplement those polls with his own electoral projections based on demographics and prior voting patterns. “I did think there was room for a more sophisticated way of handling these things,” Mr. Silver told me.
He gained attention for beating most pollsters with his projections in North Carolina and Indiana, though he whiffed on Kentucky, underselling Sen. Clinton’s huge win there.
“I think it is interesting and, in a lot of ways, I’m not surprised that his predictions came closer to the result than the pollsters did,” Brian F. Schaffner, research director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, and a numerically minded blogger in his own right, told me. Charles Franklin, co-developer of Pollster.com and a professor at the University of Wisconsin, said of Mr. Silver, “I think he’s ‘playing’ with the data in a very constructive, open and interesting manner.”The fivethirtyeight.com website is very interesting and is now including predictions on Senate races.
Again, I like math and I am interested to see the math involved here. So far this site has been more accurate than most of the pollsters and it will be fun to see if these formulas hold up for the general election.