(Welcome, New York Times readers!) Thanks to commenters on this topic. Your feedback has shaped my thinking on this subject. I recall being skeptical that redistricting could have a major effect. As it turns out, the effects of partisan redistricting helped Republicans far more than I expected. One reason for my skepticism is that the [...]
Entries Tagged as '2012 Election'
Reince’s plan, Carrico’s folly
January 25th, 2013, 8:59am by Sam Wang
Here’s an article by Steve Coll on gerrymandering in the New Yorker. The subject is not dying away – quite the opposite. Some of you thought that the effect I have detected – antidemocratic outcomes in PA, OH, MI, NC, VA, FL, and IN in 2012… …was somehow peculiar to their population patterns. I’ve been [...]
Tags: 2012 Election · Politics
The mailbag
January 5th, 2013, 4:00pm by Sam Wang
Gerrymandering makes for interesting mail! Here are some excerpts from activists, a journalist, political scientist, and a few redistricters.
Tags: 2012 Election · House · Politics · Site News
Gerrymanders, Part 2: How many voters were disenfranchised?
January 2nd, 2013, 2:32pm by Sam Wang
(Welcome, redditors! And for the hardcore nerds…) Redistricting is a large and sometimes arcane subject. Take a look at the comments section for the last post. Some of you are quite knowledgeable on the subject. Others are new to it. Before I continue, I’ll lay out some basics, and explain what it is about this problem [...]
Tags: 2012 Election · House · Politics
Gerrymanders, Part 1: Busting the both-sides-do-it myth
December 30th, 2012, 12:29pm by Sam Wang
The Washington Post Second Annual Wonky Awards are out. Wow, there I am for Best Election Modeler. Thank you! (Mental note: If I ever meet the Worst Modeler recipient, Dick Morris, remember to avoid shaking hands. The whole particle-antiparticle thing. We’d annihilate or get stuck together. Either outcome is bad.) >>> As current negotiations over [...]
Tags: 2012 Election · House · Politics
What’s your favorite chart of 2012?
December 20th, 2012, 10:45pm by Sam Wang
Nerds around the blogosphere seem to be collecting their favorite charts of the year. Obviously, I can’t pick my own. But to recall the Woody Allen joke… …I can pick my second-favorite.
Tags: 2012 Election · Politics
Gallup’s man misses the point
November 17th, 2012, 1:04am by Sam Wang
(Update, Nov. 19: now with Gallup’s performance shown in graph form.) Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport appears to be on a campaign against poll aggregation. In a recent essay (‘Polling, Likely Voters, and the Law of the Commons‘, Gallup.com) he writes: It’s much easier, cheaper, and mostly less risky to focus on aggregating and analyzing others’ [...]
Tags: 2012 Election
An open-source thank you
November 13th, 2012, 12:00pm by Sam Wang
Benchmarking of Election-Eve snapshots continues. Drew Linzer wrote me: “basically we all succeeded in different ways,” as seen at Applied Rationality and Margin Of Error. His update is here, and a recent interview with the two of us on KUSP-FM is here. A separate topic is genuine long-term predictions, which I will evaluate later (“A Presidential/downticket prediction [...]
Tags: 2012 Election
