Stat Geek Called Election, Mulls Stats Empire
In case you didn't obsessively compare election results to his site in real time, it's worth noting that baseball stat whiz Nate Silver wholly justified his gushing press and nailed the popular vote. His prediction: 52.3 percent Obama, 46.3 percent McCain. Actuals: 52.4 percent Obama, 46.3 percent McCain. Within a tenth of a percent, bitches! Granted, there are a couple of million votes yet uncounted, but Silver has already extrapolated how those will play out, and he's still super-close. Unless you want to step to his stats?? Thought so. Silver may grow fabulously wealthy applying his battle-tested techniques to other realms, according to the Wall Street Journal:
...he's considering applying the site's predictive tools to congressional votes, movies' box-office performance and other topics.
It would be surprising if Silver weren't in talks to go on retainer with a cable news network or some other media outlet (beyond his gig at Baseball Prospectus) as a consultant.
Silver's predictions on the nutty electoral college, by the way, were only slightly less accurate than his calls on the popular vote:
