Steve Kornacki is restoring Democrats’ faith in data, one chewed pen at a time

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If you were a progressive on the morning of Nov. 9, 2016, chances are you were apoplectic about the polls — and viscerally angry at every single nerd who analyzed them.

Nate Silver failed us, so the Tweetstorm went. So did The Upshot, Cook Political Report, The Huffington Post, MSNBC, RealClearPolitics — basically anyone and everyone responsible for interpreting our political future. 

Later analyses found that the 2016 polls were actually more accurate than 2012’s — just 2.2 percentage points off the actual vote margin, compared to 2012’s 2.9. For many, this statistical nuance was irrelevant. Data journalism was dead. Long live Bill Mitchell. Read more…

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