Ep. 307 — Nate Silver

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

CNN

News

4.6 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2019

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nate Silver, statistician and founder of FiveThirtyEight, joins David to talk about how his early love of sports fused with a passion for statistical modeling, the bridge from sports modeling to predicting political races, the 2008 projections that catapulted him to national fame, and his take on the 2020 field—including why an analysis of five key groups within the Democratic party suggests Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke may have the best chance of securing the nomination, why early polls so often miss the mark, and why Howard Schultz’s potential impact on the race may not be as helpful to Trump as some pundits claim. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your
0:12.5	host, David Axelrod.
0:16.8	Who is Nate Silver and why does everybody in politics care so much about what he thinks?
0:21.4	Well, it has something to do with the fact that over the last ten years he's been one
0:25.7	of the most accurate forecasters and data analysts writing and speaking about politics.
0:33.0	He came by the University of Chicago last week, his alma mater, to talk about data and politics
0:40.8	and sports.
0:42.6	And I sat down with him to talk about how he ended up being who he is.
0:49.5	Nate Silver, a living legend.
0:51.5	It's great to be across a table from you and welcome back to the University of Chicago
0:57.4	where it all began.
0:58.4	Thank you.
0:59.4	I am a U.S. graduate.
1:00.4	I'm still a huge fan of the city of Chicago.
1:05.0	I've been in New York for almost ten years now and it's a little bit of a weird interval
1:11.4	when you come back to the city.
1:14.1	It's kind of the place of Chicago.
1:16.0	University of Chicago and then lived in Chicago afterwards.
1:17.6	It's kind of where I came of age basically.
1:19.7	So it's a little bit like you kind of get this rush of memories and emotions and now
1:24.5	you see the city more as an outsider even though it's kind of your home city.
1:27.8	It is always great to have the reverse.
	...

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