toomuchtime_
Gold Member
- Dec 29, 2008
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What in particular do you think drives their accuracy and thus credibility ?
It is hard to say right now. I have only been following it for a couple weeks. A guy in my office told me about it and the uncanny accuracy in the past. If you read his methodolgy, it may give you and idea of the factors that he uses. Here is his methodology:
Methodology - NYTimes.com
Nate Silver's "uncanny accuracy" has been tested only one time. 2008 was the first presidential election he worked on and he did correctly predict an overwhelming Obama victory, but since McCain early ran out of money and in the last month was closing campaign offices because he couldn't afford to keep them open and Obama was outspending him by 5 to 1, predicting a big time Obama victory was no great feat. In fact, since Silver has acknowledged being a big time Obama supporter, it is not clear whether his prediction of an overwhelming Obama victory was the result of his methodology or simply reflected his own political biases.