Nate Silver: Pundit
Going solo has its disadvantages.
I will confess to be a paid subscribed to the Silver Bulletin, as I wanted full access to Silver’s election model and whatnot. As has been discussed here on OTB, there is a growing unease with Silver in the zeitgeist (especially the more liberal corners thereof). Part of this is, in my view, anxiety over his predictions that look Trumpier than many readers would like. And part of it is his growing tech-bro-esque personality (and his over-realiance on poker as a lens through which to see the world–h/t reader SKI for that link). His overall obvious self-importance is also a major contributor.
I will add that the fact that he is now working for Peter Thiel, who owns Polymarket, strikes me as a conflict of interest, since a lot of bettors are going to reply on Silver’s model to make their wagers. This concerns me, and places more doubt on Silver that anything else (and there are other reasons to me wonder, including what I find to be overly cute, and not especially analytical categories like his River v. Village stuff in his latest book).
I have noted several times in the comments that it is clear that Silver has been upping the confrontational nature of his takes on Twitter to drive clicks to his Substack newsletter (and, indeed, it is clear from listening to him on The 538 Podcast prior to his exit from ABC that he has always seen Twitter as a game). As he stated on the Ezra Klein Show a few weeks ago:
To some extent, even like if you run a newsletter, being a little polarizing is. It’s okay, right? If I have 10 random people yelling at me on Twitter. And 10 people sign up to be paid subscribers to Silver Bulletin, then I come out like way ahead. In that deal and so i think i couldn’t do my job without running afoul of these this group of people.
Silver, especially in recent years, has always given off a dorm-room libertarian contrarian vibe to me, and this seems of a piece with his current evolution, including his cleaving to the venture capital world in admiring fashion. He clear wants to be a titan of that ilk, taking smart risks and bestriding the world he has conquered.
One thing that he has alway claimed not to be, and indeed used to sneer at, was being a pundit. But I hate to tell him, but I think he has created his own conditions for punditry: the pressure of creating regular content on a deadline for a Substack newsletter.
This was my immediate thought after reading his piece over the weekend, Alaska, Alaska, Alaska.
The premise?
On NBC, Steve Kornacki holds up a whiteboard, echoing the late, great Tim Russert. On it are written three words: “Alaska, Alaska, Alaska”. The Last Frontier hasn’t finished counting its votes either, but early returns are surprisingly positive for Harris, a state that Democrats have won just once in the state’s history, in 1964. With Arizona and Nevada and Alaska, Harris would win the Electoral College — just barely.
To me this is like columns on Electoral College ties or brokered conventions–dramatic possibilities with very, very low probabilities that help fill column space. (And, BTW, if this year’s drama didn’t get us a brokered convention, can we please stop pretending like it might happen every four years?).
Silver’s justification for this flight of fancy?
Is this some sort of progressive election nerd wet dream? Yeah, probably. But our election model’s job is to think through every plausible scenario. And it thinks this contingency is possible, albeit unlikely.
He goes on to describe some polling from Alaska, which shows Harris only 5 points behind and then he describes the somewhat idiosyncratic politics of the state (which is something I have written about before). To be clear: reporting on polling in Alaska is all well and good, but the click-me! nature of the piece (especially the sub-title: “It’s unlikely, but the Last Frontier could be Harris’s last stand”) is a whole lot less data analysts and whoooole lot more pundit than Silver used to claim to be.
Such is the business model he has chosen, it would seem. And it further erodes, in my mind at least, his data analysis bona fides–not that Silver cares, of course.
I’ve observed that that big takeaway from Substack is the value of editors, which are missing from Substack. An example: years ago I really liked Matt Yglesias. Substack keeps pushing him at me, but he keeps sounding rushed and shallow and nothing I’d pay to read.
It’s definitely a problem. I think Silver is an elite-level data analyst. But his income now derives from generating clicks, not generating good analysis.
The thing is, as an erstwhile Silver defender, I didn’t mind all his punditry in the past and he used to have some good columns. His biggest problem to me is that he’s become so self-indulgent about the virtues of his mathematical and statistical models that it leads him to be less reflective of his own biases.
I saw this clearly when he criticized Harris’s choice of Walz over Shapiro. His main point was one of pure electoral math: PA is the most important state in this cycle, there’s a significant chance the entire election will come down to it, and even a small boost from having the state’s governor on the ticket could spell the difference between victory and defeat for Harris. Now, if it turns out that the election does end up coming down to PA and she loses it narrowly, a lot of people will start lauding Silver as a prophet once again as he prepares to flee the country to escape the incoming Trump Admin’s project to round up and detain every famous person who ever criticized him. But I think this basis for vp selection is overly reductive.
He also felt Shapiro was a better choice from the standpoint of being more moderate than Walz and therefore appealing more to the center of the electorate, which Silver feels is the most effective means of winning elections. Again, you see Silver’s biases showing, but dressed up as an analytical point. He’s always had this tendency, but it’s gotten worse over time. It’s the effect a lot of media and political people go through when they sniff their farts for too long.
@James Joyner:
It also increasingly relies on maintaining his brand and audience.
Because of the nature of his recent predictions and overall confrontational approach to media and other pollsters, he’s been attracting a lot of “heterodox” followers (i.e. alt-right, IDW types). In recent days, Silver has begun to push back against the Springfield Haitian lies that Trump and Vance are advancing. A result is that, across social media channels, many of his past boosters are suddenly wondering, “When did Silver go ‘woke’?”
Hopefully, that won’t shift Silver’s analysis over the next 50 days. Either way, we might see some of his audience stepping back from him (in much the same way liberal followers did in the past).
And who knows what tensions that could create with his boss, who is a noted Trump supporter and Vance backer.
@Kylopod:
Completely well said, and I agree with all of that. There is a wide gap between the quality of his thinking in his analytical work and his opinion-based punditry. Unfortunately, people use the former to elevate the latter.
It was buried deep in the linked Twitter thread — though was obviously featured rather prominently in the book — but I’d be curious to know how the folks at Disney, ABC, and the NBA would feel about his betting (millions of dollars!) on the NBA. Someone would have to dig into the timelines and roles and whatnot to figure out if there was anything potentially untoward actually going on, but the mere appearance of conflicts-of-interest when it comes to sports and gamblings is a major red flag for all involved. I’ll be curious if his former employers knew about it at the time and whether or not he ran afoul of any company policies and/or laws.
I am trying and failing to fathom an election where this Alaska scenario makes any sense. If Harris wins Alaska (possible but not probable) then she’s almost certainly won Georgia, PA, North Carolina and probably Florida too (which is closer than Alaska in polls AND has abortion on the ballot.)
@Alex K: It’s silly. And hence the punditry of it all.
I am personally burnt out on all of the breathless minute-by-minute analysis and polls about politics in this country. I don’t care to listen to Silver, much less pay him, and I also don’t care to listen to people like Kornacki (perhaps I’ll make an exception on election night). It’s just all so silly and has become its own big business. It’s extra dumb when you factor in the MAGA phenomenon and endless nonsense on social media.
This sentence links to an explanation that he is not working for Peter Thiel. Why repeat that conspiracy theory?
Nate Silver has become more abrasive since being freed from ABC’s editorial control. But the alternative to that is audience capture, which is much worse.