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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Silver claimed that Trump had a 28% chance of winning in 2016.
Suppose I built a model that claimed Trump had a 72% chance of winning in 2016.
Given there is only one 2016 election and Trump won it, is there any reason to believe that Silver's results are better or worse than mine?
Sure, you could present your model and the data it is based upon and everyone could make their judgement.
Ok. But Silver's model is proprietary and the details of its workings have not been presented to the public. So on what basis should we trust it?
I guess it's up to you if want to trust it or not. He doesn't share all the details, but he (at least in the past) shared enough details on his blog that I felt pretty good that he knew what he was talking about it.
I will point out that he was one of the very few aggregators in 2016 that was saying "hey look, Trump has a very real chance of winning this". Which is why I find it so amusing when people say he got it wrong in 2016 when in actuality he was one of the few that was right. After 2008 there were a bunch of copycats out there trying to do similar things as Nate Silver, and many of them were saying things like 99.99% Clinton. If people are going to criticize, that's where I would direct it.
Even if he was the only one saying that, why are we giving him credit for it?
Maybe he was the first, but going forward anyone can follow his example and say things like, "Harris has a very real chance of winning. So does Trump. Also, Cruz and Allred both have very real chances of winning. So do Elizabeth Warren and her opponent, John Deaton".
Silver showed that if you hedge by replacing a testable prediction with a tautology, then you can avoid criticism regardless of the result. I don't think that is useful political analysis.