A baseball statistician by day, the mysterious writer started dipping his toes in the political waters in a data-filled Daily Kos blog post published at 2:10 a.m., Nov. 1, 2007, titled “HRC Electability in Purple States.”…. He soon had a loyal audience, and started FiveThirtyEight — named for the number of votes in the electoral college — in March 2008. “It just ain’t very professional to keep referring to yourself as a chili pepper,” Nate Silver wrote in an article headlined, “No, I’m not Chuck Todd,” referencing the NBC host and political editor. …With the end of Silver’s contract and his time running out at FiveThirtyEight “soon,” it is unclear what he will do next. More than half the FiveThirtyEight newsroom was laid off Tuesday, according to the outlet’s own reporters.

Source: Washington Post April 26, 2023 18:36 UTC