Archive for November, 2012

I get the feeling that my crazy liberal relatives are going to be all over filibuster reform this weekend. That means, as a general defender of the contemporary Senate, I’m in for a spirited debate, and that’s being charitable. I have a few new thoughts down below, but first, here’s an annotated catalog of...
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In 2008 in Virgina, President Obama won 53.2% of the two-party vote share (i.e. Obama votes / (Obama votes + McCain votes)) . In 2012, he won 51.5% of the two-party vote share. Where did the  percentage point drop (1.7%) come from? Virginia has 134 counties and cities.  In 21 of those unit, Obama...
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Everyone and their crazy business-magnate uncle is jumping onto the  narrative that Sheldon Adelson and other Super-PAC magnates wasted their money because Romney lost the election. Maybe they did! But here’s five reasons you might want to be skeptical: 1. Winning isn’t everything. Nor is it the only thing. When you spend tens of...
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Here’s the simple chart I always want immediately after a House election, but that I can never find. So this year, i just built it myself. Here’s the district-level data file (2012 House election v2), which also includes some other goodies (like Cook PVI). Enjoy.
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My 25-point layman’s guide to getting your politics junkie on today: In the morning 1) Do not — under any circumstances — turn on your television prior to 6pm. This isn’t specific to the morning, but it has to be first, because it’s absolutely crucial. The only thing worse than the election night coverage on...
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Over the weekend, there was quite a firestorm of criticism and defense related to the quantitative modeling of the presidential election and the resulting forecasting, mostly centered around the work of Nate Silver at his excellent blog, FiveThirtyEight. I was genuinely shocked at how much interest the topic generated, and I very much enjoyed...
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