Nate Silver to FiveThirtyEight Critics: ‘Fuck You, We Did a Good Job’
When elections don’t go exactly as expected, everyone is quick to point fingers at pollsters for getting it wrong. And no one takes more heat than FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver.
During a punchy episode of FiveThirtyEight’s now daily politics podcast on Wednesday, Silver pushed back forcefully on anyone out there accusing him or his website of getting the 2020 election wrong by predicting that Joe Biden had a 90 percent chance to win what has ended up being a nail-biter of a race.
“I do want to ask about polling, because I think I would be virtually decapitated on Twitter if I didn’t get into this,” podcast moderator Galen Druke said about 20 minutes into the group’s discussion, raising the significant polling errors in states like Florida and Wisconsin. “The pitchforks are already coming for the pollsters and the prognosticators,” Druke said, asking his boss to address the “rage” that has been directed his way over the past 24 hours.