Who Will Be Right This Time: Karl Rove or Nate Silver?

AP/Silver
Connor Simpson 30,830 Views Nov 3, 2012

Two pundits have dominated the conversation (for different reasons) leading up to election day: Nate Silver and Karl Rove. They're both guessing a different outcome in 2012, but back in the heady days of the 2008 campaign they both predicted an Obama victory. 

Buzzfeed's Ben Smith pointed out on Twitter that the two prognosticators guessed (roughly) the same thing four years ago. Rove only had two states wrong. He incorrectly predicted McCain wins in Indiana and North Carolina. Other than that, it was a walk off for the former GOP strategist. Silver famously only got one state wrong: Indiana. Both had McCain winning the Hoosier state. 

This year, the two couldn't be more wildly apart. Rove predicted Romney is going to sweep the electoral college and the popular vote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial. That prediction does differ slightly from the one he's offering on his website, though. None the less: he's on record predicting a Romney victory, and we expect his final prediction map reflecting that will be released the day before the election. Silver's prediction couldn't be more different. Silver predicts it's a lock for the incumbent. His latest numbers show an 83.7 percent chance Obama wins on Tuesday. 

All we can do now is wait and see which of the two is right. As they say on Pardon the Interruption: who ya' got?

 

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at connorbsimpson at gmail dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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