FiveThirtyEight.com

Infobox Website
name = FiveThirtyEight



caption =
url = [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ www.fivethirtyeight.com]
alexa =
commercial = Yes
type = Opinion poll analysis, blog
language = English
registration = Optional
owner = Nate Silver
author = Nate Silver
launch date = March 2008
current status =
revenue =
slogan = Electoral Projections Done Right.

FiveThirtyEight.com is a political website named after the number of electors in the United States electoral college. Established in March 2008, the site is owned by Nate Silver [When Silver started his blog he published under the name "Poblano." On May 30, 2008, he revealed his true identity for the first time to his readers. Nate Silver, "No, I'm Not Chuck Todd," [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/05/no-im-not-chuck-todd.html FiveThirtyEight.com, May 30, 2008] .] and compiles polling data through a unique methodology derived from Silver's experience in baseball sabermetrics to "balance out the polls with comparative demographic data" [Andrew Romano, [http://www.newsweek.com/id/140469 "Making His Pitches: Nate Silver, an all-star in the world of baseball stats, may be the political arena's next big draw," "Newsweek", June 16, 2008.] ] and "weighting each poll based on the pollster's historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll." [cite web|url=http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dhn8hrb6_4c43866dz |title=FAQ and Statement of Methodology FiveThirtyEight.com | date=June 9 2008 | work= FiveThirtyEight.com | accessdate=2008-06-19] FiveThirtyEight.com also uses computer models to simulate the election 10,000 times per day in order to provide a continually up-to-date assessment of probability for electoral outcomes.

Notably, FiveThirtyEight.com's new polling methodology gained national attention for beating out most pollsters' projections in North Carolina and Indiana in the heavily contested political primary race between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008. [Mark Blumenthal, "The Poblano Model," [http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/mp_20080507_8254.php National Journal, May 8, 2008.] ] [cite web|url=http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/baseball-analyst-draws-fans-by-crunching-election-numbers-347/ |title=Baseball Analyst Draws Fans by Crunching Election Numbers | date=June 2 2008 | work=The Wall Street Journal | accessdate=2008-06-19 ] “I think it is interesting and, in a lot of ways, I’m not surprised that his predictions came closer to the result than the pollsters did,” said Brian F. Schaffner, research director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. [cite web|url=http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/baseball-analyst-draws-fans-by-crunching-election-numbers-347/ |title=Baseball Analyst Draws Fans by Crunching Election Numbers | date=June 2 2008 | work=The Wall Street Journal | accessdate=2008-06-19]

On June 13th, Rasmussen Reports began partnering with FiveThirtyEight.com in order to include this unique methodology for generating poll averages in their [http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_electioN/election_2008_electoral_college_update"Balance of Power Calculator"] . [ [http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/press_releases/rasmussen_reports_to_partner_with_fivethirtyeight_com Rasmussen Reports] ] [cite web|url=http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/press_releases/rasmussen_reports_to_partner_with_fivethirtyeight_com/ |title=Rasmussen Reports to Partner with FiveThirtyEight.com | date=June 13 2008 | work=Rasmussen Reports | accessdate=2008-06-20] At the same time, FiveThirtyEight.com's daily "Today's Polls" column began to be mirrored on "The Plank," a blog published by "The New Republic". [The first such cross-posting was Nate Silver, [http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/06/12/today-s-polls-the-bounce-hits-the-badger-state.aspx "Today's Polls: The Bounce Hits the Badger State," "The New Republic", June 12, 2008] .] By June 25th, entering "FiveThirtyEight" in a Google search generated a list of more than 150,000 articles that mentioned FiveThirtyEight.com; by October 3rd the same search yielded more than 350,000 articles. At this time, FiveThirtyEight.com approached 2.5 million page views a week, while averaging approximately 400,000 per weekday. [ [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/on-road-st-louis-county-missouri.html "On the Road: St. Louis County, Missouri," "FiveThirtyEight.com", October 3rd, 2008] ]

Weighting of polls

The unique aspect of the site is Silver’s efforts to rank pollsters by accuracy, weight their polls accordingly, and then supplement those polls with his own electoral projections based on demographics and prior voting patterns. “I did think there was room for a more sophisticated way of handling these things,” Silver said. [cite web|url=http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/baseball-analyst-draws-fans-by-crunching-election-numbers-347/ |title=Baseball Analyst Draws Fans by Crunching Election Numbers | date=June 2 2008 | work=The Wall Street Journal | accessdate=2008-06-19]

FiveThirtyEight.com weighs pollster's historical track record through a complex methodology [ [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/04/pollster-ratings-v30.html FiveThirtyEight:Pollster Ratings v 3.0] ] and assigns them a value to indicate "Pollster-Introduced Error (PIE)"

Half-life formula

Polls on FiveThirtyEight.com are weighted using a half-life of thirty days using the formula 0.5^P/30 where 'P' is the number of days transpired since the median date that the poll was in the field. The formula is based on an analysis of 2000, 2004, and 2006 state-by-state polling data. [http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2004/pastpolls.html ElectoralVote.com]

wing state analysis

Silver presents an analysis of the swing states, focusing on so-called 'Tipping Point States'. [ [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/03/swing-state-analysis.html FiveThirtyEight FAQ Page: Swing State Analysis] ] 'Tipping Point States' are those states that tip the outcome of the election from one candidate to the other. In each simulation run, the winner's states won are lined up in reverse order of victory margin by percentage. A simple algorithm selects the minimum closest states that, if switched to the loser's side, would change the election outcome, then weights that run's significance based on the margin of victory in the popular vote. Thus, the closer the popular vote, the fewer the number of tipping point states and the greater the significance of that run in assessing tipping point importance. For example, the 2004 election's sole tipping point state was Ohio by this method, while 1960's were Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey -- even though Hawaii was the closest state race.

enate races

In July 2008, the site began to report [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/senate%20polls projections of 2008 U.S. Senate races] . [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/senate-projections-methodology-primer.html Special procedures] were developed relying on both polls and demographic analysis. The projections are updated on a weekly basis.

Campaign organization and ground game

In addition to Nate Silver, a second writer on the site is [http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/next-laura-ingraham.html Sean Quinn] . Quinn draws on his knowledge and experience with campaign organizations to evaluate the ground game and "get out the vote" strategies of the McCain and Obama campaign teams.

ee also

* Statewide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008

References