ABC News Taps Nate Silver And FiveThirtyEight For Midterm Election Coverage

ABC News Taps Nate Silver For Election Coverage
Nathaniel 'Nate' Silver, editor-in-chief of ESPN's FiveThirtyEight blog, speaks during a panel discussion at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, U.S., on Saturday, March 8, 2014. The SXSW conferences and festivals converge original music, independent films, and emerging technologies while fostering creative and professional growth. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Nathaniel 'Nate' Silver, editor-in-chief of ESPN's FiveThirtyEight blog, speaks during a panel discussion at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, U.S., on Saturday, March 8, 2014. The SXSW conferences and festivals converge original music, independent films, and emerging technologies while fostering creative and professional growth. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Elections are polling genius and FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver's bread and butter. In 2008 he famously predicted the winner of the presidential election in 49 out of 50 states (not to mention all 35 Senate races), solidifying his place as a statistical guru and sought after media figure.

Tuesday night, as part of ABC News' midterm election coverage, Silver and FiveThirtyEight senior political writer Harry Enten will supply commentary and periodic updates live from ESPN's New York studio, both on air with George Stephanopolous and online at ABCNews.com.

ESPN, which is owned by Disney-ABC, bought FiveThirtyEight from The New York Times in 2013, but since the deal there have been questions regarding how effective Silver's "date journalism" is in reaching the masses, with Salon going as far as to call the project a "frivolous failure."

Though Silver is also a revered baseball statistician and under the direction of ESPN, no doubt ABC News still sees FiveThirtyEight as a tool that could be best put to use -- and most compelling -- during election season.

Before You Go

DIANE SAWYER, GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS

ABC News Journalists

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot