Nate Silver gives GOP donors a closed-door presentation

Nate Silver, the ESPN journalist behind the FiveThirtyEight website, gave a presentation on the 2016 battleground map to a group of powerful Republican donors in Manhattan last week. Silver was paid to give the presentation by the American Opportunity Alliance, a group led by some of the biggest Republican donors in the country, including hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer and the Ricketts family, which owns the Chicago Cubs.

Silver’s closed-door session was part of a two-day confab, held Sept. 7-8 at Le Bernardin Prive, a private dining room inside a New York City restaurant run by celebrity chef Eric Ripert. Upwards of three-dozen top donors attended the gathering, along with senior Republican Party officials and strategists. Silver’s presentation on Wednesday afternoon was a highlight of the two-day event, people at the event said.

The statistician summed up Trump's chances by showing a slide with a colleague’s tweet: “Remember it's entirely consistent to say 1. Polls have tightened. 2. Clinton still leads. 3. Trump can win. 4. Clinton probably will win.”

He then walked the donors through a battleground map, from Nevada to Florida, providing non-partisan analysis and projections based on the FiveThirtyEight model.

Attendees said his insights were valuable, though they involved no information that wasn’t already on his website in one form or other.

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http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/295469-nate-silver-gives-gop-donors-a-closed-door-presentation