Election 2012: Has Nate Silver destroyed punditry?
Has Nate Silver destroyed punditry? This question arises due to New York Times poll analyst Mr. Silver鈥檚 accuracy in predicting the 2012 election results and the media context in which that occurred.
For weeks now, some in the traditional punditocracy 鈥� the folks who look at a poll, call a campaign official, then consult their gut feelings over lunch 鈥� have hammered Silver for his statistics-heavy approach. He gave a false appearance of certainty, they said. He was way too bullish on President Obama鈥檚 chances, they said. His numbers were skewed, they said.
The classic exposition of these views was 鈥淣ate Silver: One-term celebrity?鈥� a published on October 29.
Then came the actual voting. Silver got all 50 states right, down to his last-minute prediction that Florida would be a virtual tie.
Traditional pundit George Will of The Washington Post opinion section? He forecast that Mitt Romney would win with 321 electoral votes. Wrong!
New York Post pundit Dick Morris? He said Romney would win with 325 electoral votes. Wrong again!
CNBC pundit/host Jim Cramer? He thought Obama would roll up 440 electoral votes. We鈥檝e gone over the states several times and we don鈥檛 see how that鈥檚 even mathematically possible.
Given this disparity, has the venerable art form of political punditry been discredited beyond redemption?
We鈥檝e got some thoughts on that, surprise, surprise. The first is that it鈥檚 easy to make pundits look like witch doctors. All you have to do is cherry-pick the worst predictions, which we鈥檝e done above, and suddenly a whole class of cable news analysts appears foolish.
Some pundits were right, or at least more right than Mr. Morris. Ron Brownstein of the National Journal had Obama to win, but a low predicted total of 288 electoral votes, for example. Donna Brazile of the Democratic National Committee said Obama would get 313 electoral votes, which was pretty close to what happened.
Slate has a fun dart-board graphic of pundit hits and misses, which you can peruse .
After all, Nate Silver isn鈥檛 that special. That鈥檚 our second point. Many analysts produce prediction models based on lots of polls, plus the addition of economic indicators and other data. If you know your way around a regression analysis, it isn鈥檛 that hard.
Political scientist Josh Putnam of Davidson College did a math-based forecast at his , and he was dead-on, just like Silver. and the Princeton Election Consortium thought Romney would win Florida, but got everything else right.
Heading into the next election cycle, more and more media outlets will want their own Nate Silvers. After all, in the run-up to Election Day, 20 percent of all New York Times web visits included a stop at Silver鈥檚 FiveThirtyEight blog. In that sense Silver has dented the old way of doing things, which may never be quite the same. The future of political journalism includes more numbers. We, um, veteran types will have to get used to that fact.
But the Dick Morrises of the world aren鈥檛 going away either. In today鈥檚 polarized media landscape, one purpose is to inform, but another is to make the news consumer feel comfortable. Fox News will give lots of air time to pundits who just happen to lean Republican. MSNBC will do the same for liberals. Viewers who want to break out of partisan closed-feedback loops will need to try to discern which 鈥渆xperts鈥� know what they鈥檙e talking about and which are just repeating what they think the partisan skew of the audience demands.
Because 鈥� and here鈥檚 our last point 鈥� it鈥檚 really about time that journalism stepped up its performance in this area. The politicians themselves adopted a quantification-heavy approach to their business long ago. In terms of voter analysis, microtargeting, and other techniques they鈥檙e far beyond what the media discusses. In the book 鈥�Moneyball,鈥� Michael Lewis wrote how statistics revolutionized baseball. Well, the 鈥淰oterball鈥� revolution is upon us, if it hasn鈥檛 already occurred.
Why do you think Mitt Romney went to Pennsylvania on the campaign鈥檚 last weekend? Given the scope of his loss, it鈥檚 clear he wasn鈥檛 trying to run up his score or force Obama to play defense in the state. No, he knew he was quite likely to lose Ohio, and Pennsylvania provided the slim chance of an alternate path to 270 electoral votes. That鈥檚 what his quants told him. Dick Morris? He was out of the loop.
