I'm not really invested in defending Nate Silver or in the results of the presidential election, I just think statistics are cool.
Being a liberal doesn't make you bad at stats. The degree to which 538's models reflect personal value judgments is almost certainly minimized, so dismissing them out of hand because they come from Nate Silver and use cutesy animal drawings doesn't really "own the libs."
"But 2016" they gave Trump more of a chance than anyone else did, and besides they've since updated their models to avoid those specific problems.
And, I'm sorry, even a really really shitty statistical model is going to be a better election predictor than your opinion on what the "mood on the street" is or whatever.
Of course, Trump's voter suppression campaign is a huge wild card in all of this.
Agreed, 538's models are the best around, they got the 2018 midterms almost dead on.
People seem to ignore the fact that statistical modelling is only going to be as accurate as the statistics they're based on are, and in 2016 polls were all suggesting a sure Hillary victory.
Nates a fucking awful pundit, statistics aren't everything, and 538 should stop trying to do sports predictions, but that doesn't make his models bad.
Also, I respect 538 for leaving all their election predictions up as they were on the day of the election. It's a lot better than the Chapo Hosts who like to retroactively pretend that they've never gotten anything wrong.