General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Things are about to get a whole lot tougher for Nate Silver [View all]gkhouston
(21,642 posts)His baseball experience was with a high volume of untainted statistics. The statistics came from events (baseball games) that anyone could theoretically have observed, if they'd had the time and a superduper sports channel package on their TV. The statistics, absent some bad umpire calls, were an accurate reflection of the games being played. To taint that pool of data, you'd have to compromise the umpire's ability to make calls in some way. Even if you did that, the public would notice an unusually high number of bad calls.
IMO, that experience only maps well to political polls if we can legitimately assume that the polls are well-constructed and administered in good faith. To taint the data pool, all you would need to do is subvert existing polling firms or establish new ones. Although some might suspect the polls are skeevy, it would be a lot harder to prove because the act of polling is not publicly observable.
Given the amount of effort and money that's been poured into every other facet of voter suppression, it would be odd to assume that polling numbers are as pure as driven snow. Unless Nate takes a more critical look at where his data is coming from, he's likely to lose a lot of credibility this year.