… Every election cycle turns out its stars — likely and unlikely — and there’s no question that Silver and his FiveThirtyEight blog for the New York Times shone the brightest in 2012.
For most of the campaign, Silver toiled, if not in obscurity, than in the insular world of political addicts that the Fix also calls home. Then summer turned to fall, and Republicans insisted that the presidential race was tightening, even as Silver’s model — based on a weighting of the public polls available in each swing state — continued to suggest that the incumbent was a strong favorite.
Republicans reacted with outrage as Silver’s model kept pumping out predictions that Obama had an 80 percent (or higher) chance of winning. [cont.]
Chris Cillizza, Washington Post