Nate Silver to the Rescue: Or Our Collective Sanity Is Safe

I cannot recall in my lifetime a more consequential election for President. Of course, every election is portrayed as some sort of life and death battle for the future of the planet--and certainly EVERY election has powerful consequences. I wonder if Al Gore has been president if our response to 9/11 would have been so aggressive or even if that event would have happened--since I believe Mr. Gore liked to read the daily briefings...

Yet, water under the bridge, all we have to effect are the results of 2016's contest. And in this instance--there has never been from the outset two more starkly contrasting candidates. Where to go for comfort? I am for one choose information. And one of my go to places based on his impeccable track record is Nate Silver and the crew he's assembled over at 538. Today I perused his current prognostications and then reformatted the state by state data into this graphic. The special thing about Nate's work is that he doesn't simply take in polling data at face value. He works it. For example, he compares it to historical trends, evaluates against sample size, reviews the questions, compensates for the polling mechanics, adjusts for the pool of individuals participating (i.e. likely voters vs registered voters). And the results certainly give me reason to believe that the world will still be here as I know it for at least the next 4 years...