Thursday morning update: Clearly some people don’t like this post, which is fair enough. One of the roles of the columnist is to provoke, and, occasionally, enrage. Rather than address the criticisms in the comments section individually, I’ll say a few things and leave it at that.
Firstly, it was not my intention to make a political point, or to give succor to the Republicans. As I indicated, I agree with Silver that Obama is still ahead where he needs to be ahead, and that he is likely to win. What I query is the apparent precision of the FiveThirtyEight forecasts, and whether its model adds very much to the opinion polls.
Secondly, in reaching for a strong conclusion, I was overemphatic. Clearly the model helps us to think about the likelihood of a Romney victory: the question is how much. In encapsulating the latest polling data in a timely manner, its forecasts provide a valuable benchmark, to which I and many others regularly refer. But that doesn’t mean it is entirely reliable.
Finally, I will be perfectly happy to be proved wrong. After spending many years watching economists and financial analysts struggling to predict the future, I perhaps have a jaundiced view of the usefulness of statistical forecasts in the social sciences. If a super-smart fellow like Silver has indeed demonstrated a reliable way to predict political outcomes, it represents real progress. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If Silver calls the popular vote and the electoral college correctly again this year, and if his model outperforms the Real Clear Politics poll of polls in the battleground states, I will gladly eat humble pie and send round a bottle of champagne to the FiveThirtyEight offices.