Perhaps he's trying a bit of deflection...

Which includes Obama. He is a liberal to libertarian.
He is not voting to be objective. Some journalists to that.

He has a record to back up his projections.

I thought the OP didn't quite have it right.

the short article said that Nate said he would vote for either Romney or Johnson. If that's not right, I'm sorry about that. I can check the video to confirm.

That doesn't make any political sense.

should expect from anyone.

Is on the line. People are gonna look back on 2012 and say "who was right and who was wrong".

He's not gonna blow it intentionally. Thats his livelyhood.

You can look at it your way, or, you can look at is as Obama's numbers are good even though he's not in Obama's camp. I choose the latter.

who designed his model BEFORE he knew who any of the parameters would even benefit. He could be a segregationist and it wouldn't matter.

I think he was trying to make a point. He also said he was between a liberal and a libertarian.

If you were paying attention you would see there are at least five or six statisticians and political scientists who are doing the same thing as Silver and coming up with roughly the same results. Silver is smart but he didn't invent math;ergo:

He probably says he doesn't vote because he doesn't want to give the impression that he is biased.. I also think if he would've come straight out and said: "Yes, I am a big Obama supporter" he would be facing even more of a backlash.. I also bet the NY Times has told him not to talk about his own political views.. When he mentioned he was between Gary Johnson and Romney, I think he simply misspoke..

He has been less transparent in his political leanings in this cycle perhaps because his site is no longer independent and he must maintain more journalistic non-bias now that he works for the Times. He said in the same interview you referenced that he considers his political philosophy to be somewhere between liberal and libertarian... this leads me to believe he misspoke and meant to say between Johnson and Obama... just a guess, because obviously Mitt doesn't fit this description (depending on his audience I suppose).

Regardless, I don't think Silver's statistical model is impacted by his political leanings.

Besides, what a silly question to pose of a statistician whose work has not been shown to be faulty. He is not a cheerleader for Dems.

Nate's entire reputation rests on Five Thirty-Eight and he works for the New York Times. Considering all the shit he gives Dick Morris I can't see him going to the same levels of hackery.

I could give a damn what his personal politics are--he's good at numbers and that's what he's stuck to.

seriously?

It does not matter if he is for or against Obama or Romney, or Johnson or Nixon.

What you want from a poll reader is statistical accuracy.

You probably won't get that from Rasmussen.

But I think Gallup has been dismissed too easily, outlier that it may be.

As to Nate, he's just running what I presume is a computer model aggregating the information he can gather.

Sure, he could "cook the books." Which would be the end of his value, and his apparently paying gig, at the NYT.

I'm just hoping he isn't WRONG. Because my son has health insurance he was previously auto-denied, and "Obamacare" made that happen.

Strange how "Romneycare" was good enough for the "voters" in Massachusetts, but not good enough to share with those whose "pre-existing conditions" gave excuse to the generous insurance industry to auto-deny.

Then, didn't I see today that Romney now "supports" FEMA?

With friends like Romney . . .

NYT does things the way a media establishment should. You can be unbiased, proven by Mr. Silver.

it' how the "Left" and the "Liberals" screw themselves every time. No no no, he's not pure enough for us. Forget the "big tent" if you don't fit into the Limo, you get left...excuse the pun...behind. Hell, if a RWCF gets in the same universe, the base will back 'em to the hilt.

It's what happened to Obama when he didn't walk on water and part the Red Sea, and damn near gave it away to political cretins. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Sorry about the rant but the Left needs to get a pair.

I think he fails to see the future, but that is not his job Obama 379

That makes his numbers unbiased.

He is on Rachel all the time. I doubt he would vote for Romney, regardless of what he said. Maybe he is tired of death threats or was just trying to say that his politics do not affect his numbers.

He invented...and sold for huge bucks....sabermetrics, the baseball thing. He just has some algorithm...the "machine" and he sticks numbers in and out pop other numbers. ....and he tells us what numbers he pops in, which polls he uses and how he reads them and thinks about them...in every new article, every day.

I not only trust him, there are few I trust as much, if any...

It's about trusting his methodology. From what I can tell he does as honest a job he can. He's very intelligent and it's in his interest to be as accurate as possible. The tone of his blog is quite different than four years ago. He sounds more neutral since his site got absorbed by the NYT. That's understandable. People seem to forget he got his start on Kos when he made it clear he was an Obama supporter.

I still think a lot of the prediction modelers could be a bit more transparent. Sometimes the whole plugging numbers in a black box, performing simulations, and spitting out numbers makes me a bit uncomfortable because we don't know exactly how its doing what it's doing. He does at least tell us which parameters and data he's using and he has incorporated a lot.

He is not blatantly partisan like the laughable "unskewed polls" idiots.

It's an insult to folks intelligence to suggest they rely on one person to inform them of the state of the race.

Consider the somewhat cranky sounding tweets that Nate Silver issued this morning, aimed at Joe Scarborough:

.@JoeNBC: Every bookmaker from Las Vegas to London stands with our assessment of the odds. (the tweet included this link)

.@JoeNBC: If you think it's a toss-up, let's bet. If Obama wins, you donate $1,000 to the American Red Cross. If Romney wins, I do. Deal?

his partisanship or lack of it is beside the point. His track record is reasonably impressive; 49 out of 50 states called correctly in 2008. If the polling data were indicating a 78% chance of Romney winning then I'm sure he'd be saying that.

Also took the Rose interview to mean he can cross the spectrum. Here in VA, lots of lefties (myself included) voted for Frank Wolf when he represented this area. Wolfie tells Grover to take a hike. Now it's milquetoast Bob Goodlatte and I write in my dog.