Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Refreshments will be served)
Speaker: Charles Franklin, UW Department of Political Science
Abstract: In 2012 polls came in for exceptional scrutiny and criticism. Claims that polls where hopelessly skewed became a common meme of the fall campaign. And indeed, polling faces significant practical challenges. But did the polls, in the end, perform poorly? Interestingly, campaign leaders from both the Obama and the Romney campaign have been quoted saying the polls failed. And yet the Obama campaign made unprecedented use of polling in their data analytics. Meanwhile, Nate Silver came to personify the quantitative analysis of election campaigns. His successful predictions for 50 of 50 states is vindication of his forecasts. But did Nate do better than other forecasts?