The 70:30 prediction against Trump was far better than most. I did see models back then that considered the state polls mostly or entirely uncorrelated, and those produced obviously garbage with 90% or even 99% in favor of Clinton.

But in the end people pick on Nate because he really enjoys being an asshole on the internet. It's far more about when he acts as a pundit, not as an expert on statistics.

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softwaredoug 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

People consistently have a hard time understanding that 30% probabilities happen all the time.

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triceratops 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Surely not all the time.

	▲	BobaFloutist 13 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think given the number of things that can happen with ~30% probability, there's probably something significant happening with ~30% probability at basically all times.
	▲	Lerc an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		30% of the time it is all of the time.

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Yossarrian22 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some say 30% of the time.

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krapp an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Where Presidential politics is concerned, I think it's less a case of misunderstanding probabilities and more the success of party propaganda. Every victory is a landslide with a resounding mandate from the populace, every defeat a crushing humiliation and repudiation of your opponent's Unamerican ideals.

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bigfishrunning an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I kind of fell off the Nate Silver train toward the end of Trump's first term (so deep in the COVID-19 era...). It feels like around that time 538 shifted heavily away from raw statistics and into punditry, and they seemed less unique among the various political blogs.

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add-sub-mul-div an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Those predictions all became worthless anyway when Comey reopened the "emails" issue right before the election and threw fresh meat to all the stupid people who ate that up.