Disney axed Nate Silver&#8217;s once-influential FiveThirtyEight on Wednesday as part of sweeping job cuts at ABC News, ending the data-driven political site&#8217;s seven-year run at the network.
FiveThirtyEight gained national prominence for its statistical approach to political forecasting but drew criticism for misses in key elections, most notably giving Hillary Clinton a 71.4% chance of winning the 2016 presidential election.
FiveThirtyEight&#8217;s editorial director of data analytics, G. Elliott Morris, confirmed the layoffs on Bluesky on Wednesday, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/gelliottmorris.com/post/3ljnfl3pvuc2v">writing</a>, “As reported, the entire staff of 538 was laid off this morning. This is a severe blow to political data journalism, and I feel for my colleagues.”
The cuts are part of a broader restructuring at Disney, the parent company of ABC, which is slashing approximately 200 positions (about 6% of its workforce) across ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks, continuing the trend of media company layoffs and restructuring across the industry, Mediaite <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/media/fivethirtyeight-gets-the-ax-as-abc-news-slashes-jobs-in-major-shakeup/">reported</a>. Many journalists lamented FiveThirtyEight’s demise on social media.
Silver, who founded the site in 2008 and left ABC in May 2023, wrote on X, &#8220;Oh geez, I just saw the news about 538. My heart goes out to the people there. They were tremendously hard-working and produced a lot of extremely valuable data and insight for everyone who wants to understand politics better. They deserved much better.&#8221;
Silver left ABC amid reports of tension with network executives over resource allocation and editorial direction.
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Oh geez, I just saw the news about 538. My heart goes out to the people there. They were tremendously hard-working and produced a lot of extremely valuable data and insight for everyone who wants to understand politics better. They deserved much better.
&mdash; Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1897141188664418476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
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FiveThirtyEight began as an independent polling aggregation platform before being licensed to The New York Times, then acquired by ESPN in 2013, and later transferred to ABC News.
Despite shuttering the project, ABC News said it would &#8220;continue to provide the best-in-class polling and political data analysis that it has offered for decades.&#8221;
The decision to close FiveThirtyEight comes as legacy media organizations face declining audiences and increasing competition from independent content creators and alternative news sources.
The shutdown also impacts several ABC News programs, with investigative shows “20/20” and “Nightline” merging into a single unit, while all three hours of &#8220;Good Morning America&#8221; will now fall under one production team instead of separate management, Variety <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/disney-200-layoffs-tv-abc-news-1236328122/">reported</a>.
The move reflects Disney&#8217;s ongoing financial challenges under CEO Bob Iger, who returned to the company in 2022 and has implemented multiple cost-cutting measures. Disney shares have fallen more than 3% over the past year as the entertainment giant navigates streaming losses and declining cable television viewership, according to financial <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DIS/">data</a> from Yahoo Finance.

New York Stock Exchange Opens Trading Day, After Dow Closes Prior Day At Highest Level For Year

Disney Pulls Plug On FiveThirtyEight Amid Broader ABC News Cuts

ABC News

Disney

Media

Nate Silver

Politics

polling

Statistician and polling analyst Nate Silver says that late-election polling groups are “herding” their survey results, or fidgeting with the fundamentals to rig the outcomes of their surveys.
A statistically anomalous amount of October poll results show Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck-and-neck in the swing states that could decide the 2024 election, according to Siver. Even if the candidates are running tight races in each of the swing states, normal variations in polling should show a wider smattering of results than currently exists.
Silver’s election forecasting model has a database of 249 polls that were at least partly done in month of October in battleground states. Of those polls, 193 of them, or nearly 80%, show Harris and Trump within 2.5 points, a statistical tie.
“That’s way more than you should get in theory — even if the candidates are actually exactly tied in all seven states, which they almost certainly aren’t,” Silver reported in Friday’s edition of his newsletter, <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/theres-more-herding-in-swing-state" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Silver Bulletin</a>. “Based on a binomial distribution — which assumes that all polls are independent of one another, which theoretically they should be — it’s realllllllllllllly unlikely. Specifically, the odds are 1 in 9.5 trillion against at least this many polls showing such a close margin.”
Silver said the most suspicious polling results have come out of Wisconsin.
“There, 33 of 36 polls — more than 90 percent — have had the race within 2.5 points. In theory, there’s just a 1 in 2.8 million chance that so many polls would show the Badger State so close,” he said.
“In Pennsylvania, which is the most likely tipping-point state — so weighing in there is tantamount to weighing in on the Electoral College — the problems are nearly as bad,” he continued. “There, 42 of 47 polls show the Trump-Harris margin within 2.5 points — about a 300,000 to 1 ‘coincidence.’”
Polls across Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan appear to be suffering from herding, as well. The herding is less focused on an even split, however, as results in those states have tended to favor one candidate or the other, so pollsters can project a leader without straying outside of the average cluster of polls, according to Silver.
“This is a clear-as-day example of what we call herding: the tendency of some polling firms to move with the flock by file-drawering (not publishing) results that don’t match the consensus or torturing their turnout models until they do,” the polling analyst said.
In addition to Silver, Nate Cohen, the chief political analyst for The New York Times, has also voiced some concern that polling results may be flawed. Herding notwithstanding, Cohen says that pollsters may still be undercounting Trump’s support because of the difficulty of projecting his voter base.
“Across these final polls, white Democrats were 16 percent likelier to respond than white Republicans. That’s a larger disparity than our earlier polls this year, and it’s not much better than our final polls in 2020 — even with the pandemic over. It raises the possibility that the polls could underestimate Mr. Trump yet again,” Cohen <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/03/upshot/polls-harris-trump-battlegrounds.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> of the latest <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/03/us/elections/times-siena-battleground-poll-crosstabs.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times/Sienna College</a> poll, the final poll for the paper before the 2024 election.

Voting booths

Nate Silver Explains Why He Is Skeptical Of Battleground State Polling

2024 Election

Donald Trump

Kamala Harris

A well-known statistician, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/nate-silver" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nate Silver</a>, shared on Sunday two dozen reasons why he believes former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> could defeat Vice President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/kamala-harris" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kamala Harris</a> in the 2024 presidential election.
In a <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/24-reasons-that-trump-could-win" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post to his online newsletter</a>, the &#8220;Silver Bulletin,&#8221; Silver explained how he wanted to provide a &#8220;laundry list&#8221; of factors that favor Trump to counter the notion that this year&#8217;s White House race is Harris&#8217; to lose.
The list was published less than three weeks out from Election Day as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/betting-market-shows-trump-leading-harris-in-6-swing-states" target="_blank" rel="noopener">betting markets</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/not-just-the-betting-markets-trump-takes-lead-in-battleground-state-polling" target="_blank" rel="noopener">polls</a>, and Silver Bulletin&#8217;s <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/does-trump-have-momentum" target="_blank" rel="noopener">own forecast</a> show Trump gaining momentum and leading Harris in key battleground states.
Silver said Harris is favored to win the popular vote, but he stressed Republicans are favored by a 2-point Electoral College &#8220;bias&#8221; that is &#8220;inherently difficult for Democrats to overcome&#8221; in close elections.
Other reasons focused on the economy, including high inflation, voter &#8220;perceptions&#8221; that lag &#8220;objective data,&#8221; and &#8220;nostalgia&#8221; for the &#8220;relatively strong&#8221; economy under Trump before the COVID pandemic hit.
Silver noted that incumbent parties are doing &#8220;very poorly&#8221; worldwide, populism is &#8220;often a highly effective strategy,&#8221; and illegal immigration &#8220;increased substantially&#8221; in recent years as backlash to it grew.
He said Harris lacks a &#8220;viable strategy&#8221; for explaining her changing stances and has to contend with a late start to her run as well as taking in some of the staff from President Joe Biden&#8217;s &#8220;poorly-run&#8221; campaign.
Taking a look at a broader scale in the U.S., Silver declared that &#8220;cultural vibes are shifting to the right&#8221; while the Left &#8220;continues to pay a price for the excesses of 2020 on COVID, crime, &#8216;wokeness,&#8217; and other issues.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1729077615157000&amp;usg=AOvVaw17Kprl74oE9DYOLREdiBPU">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28</a>
More of Silver&#8217;s reasons included Democrats losing support among black voters and other minority groups as well as &#8220;many men, especially younger men,&#8221; feeling &#8220;lost&#8221; amid a number of societal shifts.
Silver said voter &#8220;objections&#8221; related to Biden&#8217;s advanced age before he dropped out of the 2024 race ultimately &#8220;neuters what should have been one of Harris&#8217;s best issues about Trump&#8217;s age and cognitive fitness.&#8221;
Harris, seeking to become the first woman president, was also mentioned as a reason why Trump might win, as Silver explained that in the 2016 election, &#8220;undecideds broke heavily against Hillary Clinton, and she underperformed her polls.&#8221;
Silver listed low trust in the media, Trump&#8217;s effectiveness at &#8220;convincing voters that he&#8217;s on their side even if his election would not be in their best interest,&#8221; and the Democrats focusing so much on January 6.
There is also the Democrats&#8217; &#8220;college-educated consultant class&#8221; having &#8220;poor instincts&#8221; for appealing to the mass public while Trump has &#8220;done more to cultivate support among &#8216;weird&#8217; marginal voting groups.&#8221;
Further reasons included how the world has become &#8220;more unstable&#8221; under Biden, the Israel-Hamas war fracturing the Democratic base, and Harris running on &#8220;vibes&#8221; while struggling to &#8220;articulate&#8221; her vision.
Silver also listed more Left-leaning third-party candidates than Right-leaning ones, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsing Trump, Elon Musk backing Trump, and Trump surviving two assassination attempts.

Nate Silver Publishes Two Dozen Reasons Why Trump Could Defeat Kamala

Elections

Polls

Democratic pollster Nate Silver called on President Joe Biden to resign the presidency and transition power to Vice President Kamala Harris following his &#8220;incoherent&#8221; interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Silver made the comments in response to a clip of Biden from the interview, during which he fumbled the answer to a question about whether or not he&#8217;d watched the debate from a week earlier and misrepresented a recent New York Times poll.
&#8220;Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?&#8221; Stephanopoulos began.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I did,&#8221; Biden replied.
&#8220;What were you experiencing as you were going through the debate? Did you know how badly it was going?&#8221; Stephanopoulos tried again.
&#8220;Yeah, look,&#8221; Biden said, and then paused for several seconds. &#8220;The whole way I prepared, nobody&#8217;s fault, mine, nobody&#8217;s fault but mine. I prepared what I usually would do sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or the National Security Council for explicit detail, and I realized partway through that you know all I get quoted The New York Times had me down ten points before the debate, nine now ,or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn&#8217;t — I mean — the way the debate was ran — my fault, no one else&#8217;s fault &#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;But it seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in &#8230;&#8221; Stephanopoulos pressed.
&#8220;Well I just had a bad night,&#8221; Biden protested.
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&#8220;Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?&#8221;
BIDEN: &#8220;I don&#8217;t think I did.&#8221;
&#8220;Did you know how badly it was going?&#8221;
BIDEN: *incoherent rambling*
&#8220;It seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in&#8230;&#8221;
BIDEN: &#8220;Well I just had a bad night.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/jDE8bA7eD3">pic.twitter.com/jDE8bA7eD3</a>
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1809356785611927747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Silver was not impressed by the answer, and said so in a brief thread on X: &#8220;This is a pretty incoherent answer including a non-sequitur complaining about a New York Times poll, which he incorrectly claims had him down 10 points before the debate (it was actually 3 or 4 points, depending on which version you look at).&#8221;
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This is a pretty incoherent answer including a non-sequitur complaing about a New York Times poll, which he incorrectly claims had him down 10 points before the debate (it was actually 3 or 4 points, depending on which version you look at). <a href="https://t.co/uV6acR43M6">https://t.co/uV6acR43M6</a>
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1809359619774619933?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;I wimped out in today&#8217;s column and deleted a line saying he should formulate a plan to transition the presidency to Harris within 30-60 days, but I&#8217;m there now. Something is clearly wrong here,&#8221; Silver continued, adding, &#8220;The most generous way to put it is that he doesn&#8217;t seem in command, and that&#8217;s an extremely hard sell when you&#8217;re Commander in Chief. I continue to think this number is low and Democrats will apply incredible amounts of pressure.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The most generous way to put it is that he doesn&#8217;t seem in command, and that&#8217;s an extremely hard sell when you&#8217;re Commander in Chief. I continue to think this number is low and Democrats will apply incredible amounts of pressure.<a href="https://t.co/HW7mQIjpNE">https://t.co/HW7mQIjpNE</a> <a href="https://t.co/ntW4TiUvrv">pic.twitter.com/ntW4TiUvrv</a>
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1809363237479035136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2024</a></blockquote>
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President Biden Speaks With ABC’s George Stephanopoulos

Democrat Pollster Calls On Biden To Resign Now After ‘Incoherent’ Stephanopoulos Interview

Debates

Joe Biden

As President Joe Biden falls into the lowest approval ratings of his term, statistician and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver floated Biden dropping out of the race as the best option for Democrats just five months before the 2024 election.
Biden&#8217;s approval rating hit an all-time low in recent days, according to <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FiveThirtyEight</a>&#8216;s average of polls, as the president now has a 37.6% approval rating. The downward trend for Biden prompted Silver to post on X on Monday that the 81-year-old president dropping out of the race is worth discussing — even if, at this point, it &#8220;would be a big risk&#8221; for Democrats.
&#8220;But there&#8217;s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Are we there yet? I don&#8217;t know. But it&#8217;s more than fair to ask.&#8221;
&#8220;If I&#8217;d told you 10 years ago a president would seek re-election at 81 despite a supermajority of Americans having concerns about his age, and then we&#8217;d hit 8% inflation for 2 years, you wouldn&#8217;t be surprised he was an underdog for reelection. You&#8217;d be surprised it was even close!&#8221; Silver wrote.
One X user criticized Silver for asking if Biden should drop out after Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the New York hush money case.
&#8220;&#8216;Trump should drop out too!&#8217; is such a weird dunk on people who are pointing out that Biden has big challenges,&#8221; Silver shot back. &#8220;Yes, Trump should drop out! I agree! Biden would lose by 7 points, but I agree, the Republican Party and the country would be better served by a different nominee.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
But Biden just hit a new all-time low in approval (37.4%) at 538 yesterday. Dropping out would be a big risk. But there&#8217;s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. Are we there yet? I don&#8217;t know. But it&#8217;s more than fair to ask. <a href="https://t.co/1nmoKQkW85">pic.twitter.com/1nmoKQkW85</a>
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1800207457240903698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2024</a></blockquote>
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The statistician and writer then repeated an argument he&#8217;s been making for months, saying that Biden hurt Democrats&#8217; 2024 chances by running for re-election.
&#8220;What&#8217;s clearer IMO is that Democrats would have been better served if Biden had decided a year ago not to seek a second term, which would have allowed them to have some semblance of a primary process and give voters a say among the many popular Democrats across the country,&#8221; Silver <a href="https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1800208042874859727" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added</a>.
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In February, Silver <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/prominent-pollster-nate-silver-biden-on-track-to-lose-to-trump-dems-have-no-plans-to-fix-the-problems" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> Democrats that Biden is on track to lose to Trump.
“If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have told you that Joe Biden was a reasonably clear favorite in the event of a rematch against Donald Trump,” he wrote in his &#8220;<a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/its-time-for-the-white-house-to-put" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Silver Bulletin</a>&#8221; newsletter, adding that in recent months, “Biden’s situation has become considerably worse.”
“If he were 10 years younger, he might still be a 65/35 favorite,” Silver wrote. “But if his campaign is substantially encumbered by his age, he’s probably the underdog.”
Along with the president&#8217;s poor approval rating, he is also falling behind Trump in most polls. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee currently leads Biden in each of the seven battleground states, according to the <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024/battleground-states" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RealClearPolitics</a> average of polls.

Statistician Nate Silver: ‘It’s More Than Fair To Ask’ If Biden Should Drop Out Amid All-Time Low Approval Ratings

Statistician Nate Silver: 'It's More Than Fair To Ask' If Biden Should Drop Out Amid All-Time Low Approval Ratings

Executive

A political statistician suggested on Monday that the Democratic Party should consider finding a new candidate to run for the White House in 2024 if President Joe Biden fails to run a &#8220;normal campaign,&#8221; becoming the latest analyst to cite concerns about his chances of winning a second term.
Nate Silver, founder and former editor-in-chief of the data-focused outlet FiveThirtyEight, expressed doubt in his <a href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/if-biden-cant-run-a-normal-campaign?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=1198116&amp;post_id=138832028&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=2fku&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Substack newsletter</a> about Biden’s ability to win another term in Washington D.C., noting the president’s approval ratings continue to <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sink</a> to their lowest numbers ever.
But convincing Biden to pass the torch to a fresh candidate or go all in on a re-election campaign could get complicated either way, according to Silver — whose presidential election forecasts earned him recognition over the past two decades.
“Democrats would be taking a huge risk by replacing Biden — but they’re also taking a huge risk by nominating him,” Silver wrote.
“If Biden can’t keep up with the schedule of a typical sitting president running for re-election, or is prone to making errors when he does, voters and the media are going to notice that and Biden will wear his 80+ years like an albatross around his neck,” he later added.
Silver launched FiveThirtyEight, a data aggregation and blog site named for the number of presidential electors in the Electoral College, in 2008. He then accurately predicted the outcome of 49 out of 50 states in the presidential election between Barack Obama and John McCain.
He later sold the site that would eventually become part of the Disney umbrella. He continued to run stats until his contract expired earlier this year, and left the data-driven media outlet as broader layoffs at Disney impacted ABC News.
But Silver has remained in the game and has previously raised concerns about Biden’s political future, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/opinion/biden-trump-republican-debate.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggesting</a> the president should have announced he would not seek re-election earlier this year.
&#8220;If the choices are Biden running a reasonably normal campaign or a Mystery Democrat doing the same thing, I think it’s close,&#8221; Silver said. &#8220;But if it’s Biden running a Rose Garden campaign versus a different Democrat running a normal one, I’ll take my chances on the alternative, and Biden can join James K. Polk on the list of historically well-regarded presidents who didn’t seek a second term.&#8221;
Democrats have been in panic mode as former President Donald Trump — the leading Republican contender for the 2024 primary — <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nate-silver-to-leave-abc-news-in-latest-media-shakeup" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recently</a> outperformed Biden in vital swing states.
Last week, Trump led Biden 46% to 44.6% in the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average, with the four most recent polls factored in by RCP all giving Trump the edge.
The former president’s 1.4-point lead is his highest over Biden since late September, when he was ahead by an average of 1.6 points. Trump has either led or been tied with Biden in the RCP average of national polls for nearly two straight months as the president struggles with low approval ratings and multiple global and national crises.
A New York Times/Siena poll released earlier this week caught the attention of some Democrats who expressed concern about how well the former Republican president performed against Biden in critical battleground states. According to the poll, Trump led Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Trump’s polling lead in the battleground states after numerous federal-and-state-level charges were levied against the former president left him “mystified, perplexed, bewildered and, frankly, a bit angry that people can give [Trump] credibility.”
Former Obama adviser and Democratic strategist David Axelrod appeared to lack optimism about a Biden re-election campaign.
“The stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore,” Axelrod wrote on X. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
But Biden and his campaign reportedly dismissed the polls from left-wing outlets.
Zach Jewell contributed to this report.

President Biden Meets Indonesian President Joko Widodo

Political Statistician Airs Concerns Over Dems Running A Biden Re-Election Ticket

Democratic Party

FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/nate-silver" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nate Silver</a> will leave the data-driven media <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/media" target="_blank" rel="noopener">outlet</a> as broader layoffs at <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/disney" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Disney</a> impact <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/abc-news" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ABC News</a>.
Silver, whose presidential election forecasts earned him recognition over the past two decades, joins a growing number of media personalities who exited their positions this week, including Fox News host <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/tucker-carlson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tucker Carlson</a> and CNN anchor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/don-lemon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Don Lemon</a>. The statistician told employees in an internal message that he will leave Disney when his contract “soon” expires, according to a Tuesday <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/nate-silver-leaves-538-abc-news-disney-layoffs-1235401689/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the Hollywood Reporter.
“We don’t yet know the scope of these layoffs, exactly who is impacted, or the terms under which they are departing, but it is going to be a hard day for all of us,” he informed staffers.
Silver launched FiveThirtyEight, a name derived from the number of presidential electors in the Electoral College, as a data aggregation and blog site in 2008, accurately predicting the outcome of 49 out of 50 states in the presidential election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. He sold the site to ESPN, the sports outlet owned by Disney, in 2015; the site was later moved to ABC News, which Disney also controls.
FiveThirtyEight will operate without Silver for the first time in 15 years. A spokesperson for ABC News told the Hollywood Reporter that “this streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond.”
“Disney layoffs have substantially impacted FiveThirtyEight. I am sad and disappointed to a degree that’s kind of hard to express right now,” Silver <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1650899579234140168" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remarked</a> on social media. “We’ve been at Disney almost 10 years. My contract is up soon and I expect that I’ll be leaving at the end of it. I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disney-will-begin-mass-layoffs-this-week-ceo-announces" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> two months ago that the firm would dismiss 7,000 workers as part of a “strategic realignment” meant to reduce costs. Bloomberg recently <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-19/disney-is-poised-to-eliminate-thousands-of-jobs-next-week" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that many of the layoffs would occur this week and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/disney-will-dismiss-large-chunk-of-entertainment-staffers-next-week-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">impact</a> employees in the conglomerate’s entertainment, television, film, theme parks, and corporate divisions.
“For our employees who aren’t impacted, I want to acknowledge that there will no doubt be challenges ahead as we continue building the structures and functions that will enable us to be successful moving forward,” Iger informed staff members last month. “In tough moments, we must always do what is required to ensure Disney can continue delivering exceptional entertainment to audiences and guests around the world, now, and long into the future.”
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The exit of Silver comes one day after Fox News unexpectedly announced that Tucker Carlson, who dominated primetime ratings for cable television and served as a fixture on subscription video service Fox Nation, would “part ways” with the corporation. A source told The Daily Wire that his staff members were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-tucker-carlson-out-at-fox-news-channel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blindsided</a> by the news and only learned late Monday morning when members received an email from Carlson.
The news of his departure came one week after syndicated talk radio host and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/its-a-sad-day-dan-bongino-exits-fox-news-effective-immediately" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> that he was leaving Fox News, citing a breakdown in contract negotiations, and on the same day that Don Lemon was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/misogynistic-sexist-pos-cnn-insiders-trash-don-lemon-after-hes-fired" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ousted</a> from CNN.

Nate Silver To Leave ABC News In Latest Media Shakeup

Pollster Nate Silver Ousted From ABC News

Mainstream Media

U.S.

FiveThirtyEight election forecaster Nate Silver called on Fox News and The Associated Press to retract their early projections that Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden would win the state of Arizona, saying that the race is getting very tight.
The remark from Silver comes after more votes were counted in Maricopa County which caused Biden&#8217;s lead over Trump to shrink.
Silver <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/nate-silver-says-fox-news-and-ap-projections-for-biden-in-arizona-should-be-retracted-now/">wrote</a>, &#8220;I don’t know, I guess I’d say that Biden will win Arizona if you forced me to pick, but I sure as heck don’t think the state should have been called by anyone, and I think the calls that were previously made should be retracted now.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨🚨🚨
With newest batch of votes, <a href="https://twitter.com/NateSilver538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NateSilver538</a> now saying that <a href="https://twitter.com/AP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AP</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FoxNews</a> should retract their Arizona calls <a href="https://t.co/trmF30kSUj">pic.twitter.com/trmF30kSUj</a>
&mdash; Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) <a href="https://twitter.com/AZachParkinson/status/1324182485253660672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
MSNBC election forecaster Steve Kornacki updated Arizona&#8217;s election numbers after the latest batch of ballots was tallied up.
&#8220;What you just saw was the vote total in Maricopa County, Arizona, just updated,&#8221; Kornacki said. &#8220;To explain what&#8217;s going on here. Maricopa County is about two-thirds of Arizona in terms of population. So, this is the motherload when you&#8217;re talking about votes in Arizona.&#8221;
&#8220;We have basically the third batch of votes, the third and final batch of votes that they&#8217;re going to work through &#8230; we called these the &#8216;late early votes,'&#8221; he said. &#8220;They were mail ballots, absentee ballots, that came in sort of after this past weekend or were brought in on election day.&#8221;
&#8220;And the suspense has been would this be a Trump favorable group or would it be a Biden favorable group? And so we just got those new numbers, of the new votes that were just reported out, Donald Trump won 43,966 of them, Joe Biden won 30,322 of them,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Donald Trump is getting around 59% of these votes.&#8221;
Rachel Maddow immediately interjected, &#8220;Oh, God. That&#8217;s crazy.&#8221;
Kornacki added that Trump is running about the rate the he needs to, or very close to it, with the final batch of votes that he needs to overtake Biden in the state.
&#8220;That&#8217;s why, I can tell you, NBC didn&#8217;t call this last night because this possibility existed,&#8221; Kornacki added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, analyzing Arizona’s latest batch of votes, makes clear that Arizona is still in play for Trump and, by inference, perhaps it may have been too early for to call the state for Biden. <a href="https://t.co/sWroXnkAHS">pic.twitter.com/sWroXnkAHS</a>
&mdash; Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1324193472111239169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This is a breaking news story, refresh the page for updates.

US-VOTE-TRUMP

Election Forecaster Nate Silver On Fox News, AP Calling Arizona For Biden: ‘Should Be Retracted Now’

2020 Election

Arizona

Fox News

During Election Night coverage with ABC News, elections statistician Nate Silver remarked that President Donald Trump would nearly triple his chances of reelection should he win the state of Florida and its 29 electoral college votes. 
“Trump, if he wins Florida, is much more in the running. He’s about a 1 in 3 chance of winning overall,” Silver told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos earlier in the evening, according to <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/nate-silver-says-trump-win-in-florida-triples-chances-to-win-presidency-first-step-toward-a-trump-upset/">Mediaite</a>. 
DecisionDeskHQ projected Trump as the winner in Florida shortly after 8:00pm EST. However, it should be noted that Silver <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/">wrote</a> nearly an hour and a half after DecisionDeskHQ projected the race for Trump that &#8220;Florida is likely to go for Trump,&#8221; suggesting Silver could be waiting for more news organizations to call the state. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Decision Desk HQ Projects Trump (R) Has Won The State Of Florida And Its 29 Electoral Votes
Race Called At 11-03 08:11 EST
All Results: <a href="https://t.co/6GfosqGUrH">https://t.co/6GfosqGUrH</a>
— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/DecisionDeskHQ/status/1323795071104417793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
During his interview, Silver added that the small “silver lining” for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, should Trump win Florida, would be that Cuban-American voters in south Florida supporting Trump “might not translate to other parts of the country.”
“But you know, Florida would be the first step toward a Trump upset,” he continued.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
If Florida goes to Trump, though, his chances of winning the Electoral College would go up to 33%.
If we wins Georgia, his chances would go to 38%. If he won North Carolina, the race would still be a toss-up.
The candidate who then won Pennsylvania would be the heavy favorite. <a href="https://t.co/JLQWdqg1Mp">https://t.co/JLQWdqg1Mp</a>
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) <a href="https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight/status/1323806449777168384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2020</a></blockquote>
Silver, who gained prominence after correctly forecasting 49 states in the 2008 election, previously told Stephanopoulos over the weekend that Democratic nominee Joe Biden “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pollster-nate-silver-says-biden-becomes-an-underdog-if-he-doesnt-win-pennsylvania">becomes an underdog</a>” in the race if he ends up losing Pennsylvania. 
“I think it would come down to Pennsylvania,” replied Silver, when asked what he believed would be the “key factors” should he find himself writing about a Trump victory the morning after the election. “Pennsylvania has not bumped up to a 7- or 8-point Biden lead like we’ve seen in Michigan or Wisconsin.”
“There’s lots of stuff going on, and maybe a lot of little things add up,” said Silver. “Without Pennsylvania, Biden becomes an underdog.”

President Trump Meets With Bipartisan Group Of Senators On Immigration

Nate Silver On ABC News: A Florida Victory Would Put Trump At 1 In 3 Chance For Re-Election

Florida

Democratic nominee Joe Biden &#8220;becomes an underdog” in the presidential race on Tuesday if he fails to secure Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral college votes, according to FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver.
Silver made the remarks on Sunday after ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked him what he believes the “key factors” would be in the presidential election, should Silver find himself on Wednesday writing a story about Trump securing a second term.
“I think it would come down to Pennsylvania,” replied Silver. “Pennsylvania has not bumped up to a 7- or 8-point Biden lead like we’ve seen in Michigan or Wisconsin.”
Silver, who rose to prominence after accurately predicting all but one state’s electoral outcome in the 2008 election, observed that Biden’s polling lead in Pennsylvania is around five points, and furthermore, it’s not considered “a big early voting state.”
Among the other factors that could complicate Biden’s polling lead, he said, include Pennsylvania&#8217;s security envelope requirement, a potential court battle over votes, and the recent unrest and looting in Philadelphia.
“There’s lots of stuff going on, and maybe a lot of little things add up,” said Silver, reports <a href="https://www.axios.com/pennsylvania-biden-underdog-nate-silver-2c1fb6c6-c75f-4cf5-9ee6-d51df1741e2b.html">Axios</a>. “Without Pennsylvania, Biden becomes an underdog.”
According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Biden currently leads Trump in Pennsylvania by about 4 points. However, a recent survey aggregated by the website shows Trump ahead by 2 points, and another one shows Trump and Biden tied.
The Biden campaign, perhaps feeling the pressure to perform well in Pennsylvania and reassemble the “blue wall” that infamously collapsed around Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, has scheduled over a dozen events across the commonwealth for the day before the election, including events with former second lady Jill Biden, Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband.
On election eve, Biden also plans to bring out pop star Lady Gaga for a drive-in event in Pittsburgh — where the largest newspaper in the city just endorsed Trump, their first Republican presidential endorsement since 1972 — and she is expected to perform two songs, according to CBS-21 News. Meanwhile Harris plans to bring out singer John Legend at her own event in Philadelphia.
The pop star teased at her upcoming trip to Pennsylvania on Saturday when she posted a cringey election video encouraging the public to vote for Biden, while wearing camo, sipping a beer, and leaning on a pick-up truck. She then <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lady-gaga-crushes-mostly-full-beer-can-in-cringey-election-video-im-voting-for-america">tried to crush the mostly full beer can</a>, and proceeded to throw it on the ground before saying, &#8220;cheers.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I’m voting for America <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/vote?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#vote</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/election2020?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#election2020</a> <a href="https://t.co/bspDNkxnhJ">pic.twitter.com/bspDNkxnhJ</a>
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) <a href="https://twitter.com/ladygaga/status/1322665368108716033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
Silver <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-can-still-win-but-the-polls-would-have-to-be-off-by-way-more-than-in-2016/">wrote</a> in a post on Saturday that he expects more Pennsylvania polling to come out from major polling agencies ahead of the election. He called this expectation an “important exception” to his belief that major polling agencies would not be releasing many new state polls before Tuesday.

US-POLITICS-BIDEN

Pollster Nate Silver Says Biden ‘Becomes An Underdog’ If He Doesn’t Win Pennsylvania

Election Night

Pennsylvania

On Election Day 2016, at 10:41 a.m., pollster Nate Silver posted a story on his website, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/">FiveThirtyEight</a>.
&#8220;Final Election Update: There’s A Wide Range Of Outcomes, And Most Of Them Come Up Clinton,&#8221; said his headline.
&#8220;[Hillary] Clinton is a 71 percent favorite to win the election according to our polls-only model and a 72 percent favorite according to our polls-plus model. (The models are essentially the same at this point, so they show about the same forecast.) This reflects a meaningful improvement for Clinton in the past 48 hours as the news cycle has taken a final half-twist in her favor. Her chances have increased from about 65 percent,&#8221; he wrote.
Silver said his &#8220;forecast has Clinton favored in states and congressional districts totaling 323 electoral votes, including all the states President Obama won in 2012 except Ohio and Iowa, but adding North Carolina.&#8221; He hedged his bet, saying Hillary could lose North Carolina or Florida especially, so &#8220;the average number of electoral votes we forecast for Clinton is 302.&#8221;
Clinton lost both (North Carolina by 3.8 percentage points). She also lost Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. In the end, she got crushed in the Electoral College, 304-227.
And now, Silver&#8217;s at it again with a brand new prediction: a &#8220;Biden landslide is possible.&#8221;
This time around, though, Silver has including all kinds of caveats.
<blockquote>Overall — assuming that states that haven’t been polled go the same way as they did in 2016 — Biden leads in states worth 368 electoral votes, while Trump leads in states totalling 170 electoral votes.
But a potential problem for Biden is that Trump could have an Electoral College advantage if the election tightens. Biden currently leads Trump by “only” 6.6 points in the current tipping-point state, Minnesota, but this is narrower than Biden’s 9.2-point lead in the national polls. So while a Biden landslide is possible if he wins all these swing states, so is a Trump Electoral College victory, depending on which way the race moves between now and November.</blockquote>
In his first post on the general election polling averages, Silver noted that former Vice President Joe Biden holds &#8220;a solid lead over President Trump nationally, and in most swing states. Biden currently leads Trump 50.5 percent to 41.3 percent in <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/">national polls</a>, according to our average — a 9.2-point lead.&#8221;
But the pollster again pointed out that national polls don&#8217;t matter, as individual states decide elections.
&#8220;Joe Biden leads by around 9 points in our national polling average, and that lead has been growing. Of course, national polls don&#8217;t really matter. Otherwise, Hillary Clinton would have been president,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s worth noting that such a large lead is unusual in politics these days. Clinton never led by more than 7 points, for example, and at this point in the 2008 race, Barack Obama led John McCain by around 6 points.&#8221;
Silver wasn&#8217;t alone in 2016, when nearly every political pollster got it wrong. Not by a little, by a lot. Days before the election, The New York Times said Hillary Clinton had an 85% chance of winning. The Reuters News Agency put her odds at 90%. And the Princeton Election Consortium said Clinton had &#8220;more than a 99% chance&#8221; of moving into the White House, predicting she&#8217;d win 312 electoral votes.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">member</a>.

USA States Election

It Begins: Pollster Nate Silver Says ‘A Biden Landslide Is Possible’

Hillary Clinton

The unprecedented state-mandated shutdowns that have brought the U.S. economy to a screeching halt and sent jobless claims skyrocketing at a trajectory that even the most grim projections did not foresee are ultimately based on models from experts attempting to project how many people will be infected, hospitalized, and die as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The number most frequently promoted by mainstream media outlets has been the total number of cases of COVID-19, but statistician Nate Silver warns that, without the proper context, that inevitably ever-climbing number is largely &#8220;meaningless,&#8221; and if hyperfocused on without enough testing data — as it has been — can lead people to false conclusions.
In a lengthy analysis published on his <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-case-counts-are-meaningless/">FiveThirtyEight</a> blog, the much-cited statistician addresses in detail an issue that many have been pointing out from the beginning: &#8220;the number of COVID-19 cases is not a very useful indicator of anything — unless you also know something about how tests are being conducted.&#8221; In the analysis, Silver presents four testing scenarios that demonstrate how differently the number of tests being conducted impact the interpretation of the total number of cases.
Unlike in sports, where all the key data is recorded, Silver explains, crucial information about COVID-19 is glaringly missing thus far, making it very difficult to properly determine its spread, threat, and how effectively it&#8217;s being combatted. What is most problematic is the paucity of tests, particularly random tests that give us a clearer picture of how many people have actually been infected.
&#8220;The data, at best, is highly incomplete, and often the tip of the iceberg for much larger problems,&#8221; writes Silver. &#8220;And data on tests and the number of reported cases is highly nonrandom. In many parts of the world today, health authorities are still trying to triage the situation with a limited number of tests available. Their goal in testing is often to allocate scarce medical care to the patients who most need it — rather than to create a comprehensive dataset for epidemiologists and statisticians to study.&#8221;
&#8220;But if you’re not accounting for testing patterns, it can throw your conclusions entirely out of whack,&#8221; he emphasizes. &#8220;You don’t just run the risk of being a little bit wrong: Your analysis could be off by an order of magnitude. Or even worse, you might be led in the opposite direction of what is actually happening.&#8221;
For example, case counts going up in a country that is increasing its testing might seem like a bad thing on the surface, when it is in fact a positive sign that the country is getting the epidemic &#8220;under control,&#8221; Silver writes. And the opposite could be true where countries are behind in testing. Silver estimates that the U.S. is &#8220;probably somewhere in the middle of the pack&#8221; on its testing rate.
How many people are actually infected is not just unclear in many countries, the potential range is stunning. In the U.S., Silver notes, a recent <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/best-case-and-worst-case-coronavirus-forecasts-are-very-far-apart/">survey</a> suggests the U.S. could be underestimating the true number of cases &#8220;by anywhere from a multiple of two times to 100 times&#8221; — which impacts every other metric, most importantly the fatality rate and the rate of serious cases vs. mild or asymptomatic cases. If far more people are infected than experts currently estimate, then both would be far lower than we think, or vice versa.
In his lead-in to his hypothetical scenarios, Silver provides a helpful discussion about the &#8220;most important number in any epidemiological model,&#8221; R, or reproduction ratio. The ultimate goal for pandemic responses is &#8220;to get R below 1, which means that a disease begins to die out in a population,&#8221; Silver explains. The more the rate is below 1, the faster the disease will die out. Additionally, &#8220;if a disease has spread very widely throughout the population, R may eventually fall because of herd immunity,&#8221; he notes.
Silver goes on to present four different testing scenarios — robust growth in testing; sudden, one-time increase in testing; high test floor, low test ceiling; and testing decrease — which he notes are based on &#8220;hypothetical data, because we <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-its-so-freaking-hard-to-make-a-good-covid-19-model/">don’t know all the parameters we’d need</a> to properly estimate a model anyway.&#8221; His scenarios assume an R rate of 2.6 without mitigation measures, 1.4 during the &#8220;intermediate&#8221; social-distancing phase, where companies are having people work from home but governments have not imposed lockdowns, and 0.7 for full lockdowns. His scenarios also assume the following still unverifiable percentages: that 10% of cases are severe, 60% are mild, and 30% are asymptomatic. (<a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/coronavirus-case-counts-are-meaningless/">Read the full analysis here</a>.)
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-coronavirus-model-gets-another-update-downgrading-estimated-deaths">White House Coronavirus Model Gets Another Update, Downgrading Estimated Deaths</a>

Corona Virus In Red Background – Microbiology And Virology Concept

Silver: How Coronavirus Case Counts Can Severely Throw Off Conclusions On Crisis Without Right Context

COVID

Economy

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