I started reading fivethirtyeight.com several mont...

I started reading fivethirtyeight.com several months ago, and somewhere along assumed I had already blogged it, but I haven’t. It has without a doubt the best statistical analysis of presidential election polling out there, with scores of easy-to-understand graphs. For example, today’s analysis shows that McCain’s recent bounce has been much stronger in states he already has secured than in swing states, increasing the chance that Obama could win the electoral vote without the popular vote. (And, of course, increasing the chance that McCain could win with both.)

Submitted by crazymonk on Thu, 09/11/2008 - 5:00am.

Comments (3)

I agree that it's pretty and does lots of cool statistical analysis, but it is (self-admittedly) partisan in its commentary, and this makes me not as interested in the textual analysis as I am in that of electoral-vote.com.

Jon May | Thu, 09/11/2008 - 4:27pm

I'm pretty sure that Andrew Tanenbaum in the past has revealed partisan leanings as well (to the left). Nate Silver is also usually pretty careful to say up-front when he's letting his partisan feelings inform his thoughts.

crazymonk | Thu, 09/11/2008 - 4:33pm

He has acknowledged his bias but tries very hard to stay neutral (except on Sundays), and while it's not always achieved, I think he has a rather neutral tone. Maybe it's because I started following fivethirtyeight when they went to the conventions, but I so far haven't had the same experience. Or maybe Tanenbaum seems to project more of a long view than Nate and Sean. Whatever it is, I like Tanenbaum's prose and Nate & Sean's graphics more than the other way round.

Jon May | Thu, 09/11/2008 - 4:52pm