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Modelling politics

In pockets of Beltway, there is more jubilation and awe over a till-now little-known statistician called Nate Silver than over Barack Obama?s win.

The election was a slap to those who derided Nate Silver, but does it spell an end to the old school punditry?

In pockets of Beltway, there is more jubilation and awe over a till-now little-known statistician called Nate Silver than over Barack Obama?s win. The statistician, who began his career by predicting outcomes for Republican primaries and baseball games, got pretty much everything right this time in the Presidential election. He forecasted an exact 332 electoral college win and a 50.8% share of the popular vote for Obama with over 90% probability (at 50.5%, reality was just 0.3% behind), while ?pundits? such as Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg and Karl Rover dismissed him and sided with Romney. So how did he do it? He decided upon factors influencing election (people?s perception, employment, etc), tried to objectively quantify them (approval ratings, GDP growth rate), put them against a quantified context (political leanings of the GOP nominee) and calculated probability. True, most political science models are like this, but Silver?s stands out in its complexity (he factored Hurricane Sandy into his model).

Now that Nate Silver has shot to stardom (his book sales rose up by 850%, while those who derided him fear confronting him), should we say goodbye to old-school punditry, which had bombastic commentators making predictions largely on their ?psychic instincts?? Probably not. Silver?s model is, well, based on objective quantification of largely subjective factors that may necessarily not be right (pollster bias, false sampling). However, as a popular blog Fan Graphs notes, the secret behind Silver?s win in this ?nerds vs pundits? war lies in the absolute derision the pundits had for the nerds. Pretty much every conservative commentator convinced themselves of a toss-up election, when polls in swing states and the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy suggested otherwise. So while we should still expect Dick Morris cheering for the GOP on Fox News, he may do better next time by adhering to some data.

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First published on: 12-11-2012 at 01:27 IST
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