… For at least the past three election cycles, some bloggers have predicted the winner of the presidential election in each state with an accuracy that seemed to border on wizardry. Their secret? Aggregating dozens of national and state polls conducted throughout the election campaign, and applying statistics.
Much attention was paid to statistician Nate Silver, who writes the popular FiveThirtyEight blog for The New York Times. But neuroscientist Sam Wang, of Princeton University in New Jersey, not only matched Silver’s accuracy on the presidential race, but also outdid him by correctly calling the result of two closely contested Senate races that Silver missed.
Nature talked to Wang about his hobby, how it relates to his research and whether he thinks there will ever be surprises in political races again. [cont.]
Brendan Maher, Nature