Why is Nate Silver on his high horse over Trump – again?

A few years ago, the pollster Nate Silver wrote a best-selling book saying (in effect) that political pundits talk rot and that only data-armed policy analysts like him could be relied on to know what was going on. He’d based his reputation on the 2012 US election, whose results he predicted. YouGov predicted it too, but Silver has a greater gift for self-publicity. His theory was later placed in doubt when he failed to predict the result of the UK General Election in a BBC documentary — which later mysteriously disappeared. Despite this, he continues to encourage epigones in Britain, who can (and still do) come out with columns attacking folk for their inferior, prejudice-driven analysis. Today, Nate Silver is at it again — over Trump:

Never seen otherwise-smart people in so much denial about something as they are about Trump's chances. Same mistake as primaries, Brexit. https://t.co/qBPRKoZV4R

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 21, 2016

Yes, a lot of people feel certain that America just won’t choose Trump – but Mr S suspects that doesn’t really make them in ‘denial’. Given the recent performance of pollsters, from the Israeli election to Brexit, who’s to say that the figures are any more accurate than the instinct of someone with decent judgement? The idea that pollsters have ‘done a Newton’ on politics is one of the great comic vanities of our times. The polls are all over the shop: witness last year’s general election, and Brexit. If your starting position is that you’re simply smarter than anyone else, or can see more clearly due to your superior grasp of data, then you can end up getting egg on your face.  A bit like the person who wrote this:- Might the media have been justified in freaking out about Donald Trump’s polls, even if the numbers were small?