Talk:FiveThirtyEight

unbalanced

The current state of this article is deplorable. There is next to no coverage of Nate Silver's failures, only his successes. I'm not saying he's not successful or influential. I'm saying the lack of a downside makes our article *very* suspicious. The {{primary}} tag is a huge problem, since it basically turns the article into a spokesperson for 538's excellence. The emphasis on the 538 performance on past elections is very likely undue, exacerbated by the lack of 3rd party coverage. After a brief look over I rate this article "close to trainwreck" status.

It needs some serious attention, preferably by people that follow US polling, to introduce some semblance of neutral balanced reporting, and also WAY more reliable sources. Failing such attention, I propose we trim down the article to its bare bones, and then let people organically add things back again (this time using secondary sources).

CapnZapp (talk) 21:27, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

100% just had this reaction after reading the two paragraphs describing the 2016 elections that read like a PR statement written by someone at the organization. I went straight to the talk page without even noticing the neutrality banner just to see if anyone else had brought it up. Tmore3 (talk) 04:28, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

100% agreed. It is deplorable and very left-biased. ~2026-13031-40 (talk) 23:42, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

It's shutting down

538 is shutting down next week, according to a decision by Disney. Update "is" to "was" and include the information that it doesn't exist anymore. 192.42.55.22 (talk) 06:40, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe 538 predicted a narrow Harris win

Trying to get clarification because I may have at some point missed an article or other that did in fact make such a statement, but their polling and data interpertation itself at no point claimed a narrow Harris win, just very slight odds toward a Harris win which are not even remotely the same thing. A 51% chance to win is not the same as winning with a narrow margin and furthermore appears to have framed the most likely result if Harris had won (a win with 270 electoral votes) as 538's 'prediction' despite it in their simulations having had less than 50% odds of occurring even within the possible results of a Harris win. Qewy (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

To add so that I also do not forget to cite the article when I or someone else potentially fixes this and adds to this being a completely misquoting or misreading of 538's polling data: https://abcnews.go.com/538/538s-final-forecasts-2024-election/story?id=115511051 Qewy (talk) 19:04, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Both 538 and Silver included some unknown niche polls in swing state predictions in two or three days before the election, This led to their previous prediction that the situation would be infinitely close to 50% and might even be slightly unfavorable to D was reversed on the eve of the election. However, some polls show D narrowing their lead in New Hampshire were not included focused. In fact, 538 and Silver's coin-tossing predictions were criticized before the election, they were accused of discrimination without any basis, although their settlements before October were very consistent with certain public opinion trends, and they tip the scales in the final stages didn't earn them outright forgiveness. It was not until after the election that the center-left forces belatedly defended them, but 538 and Silver's credibility and reputation had been damaged. Cbls1911 (talk) 22:51, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

This was, however, due to a lot of misunderstanding of their polls. Repeatedly they explained that a lead on their electoral percentile wasn't, as it is in systems that primarily are based on popular vote, to be taken as 'who was in the lead' but, as it was, a percentage chance of either candidate winning. Stating that the Republican candidate had a roughly 49% chance is in no way the same as claiming the Democrat candidate had a lead considering their system and the US' electoral college system. Claiming that 538 stated that the Democrats would have a narrow win is a total misrepresentation of their actual claims, their shared data, and their methodology.

PA, MI, and WA were all won by a <1% margin, states that, if had been Blue, would've resulted in a Democrat win--which fit 538's data. A coin toss of an election due to the narrow margins in the crucial states of PA, MI, WA, and GA (GA having been won with still a tight margin, but mildly wider at <1.5%). In other words: the line that I have pointed out in the article is erroneous. Qewy (talk) 17:22, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

ownership

from Kos to NY Times licensing to ESPN ownership

how did Silver lose ownership?

Xo4v (talk) 06:49, 20 May 2026 (UTC)