{"id":2411162,"date":"2025-03-07T17:33:02","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/abc-shuts-down-pro-leftist-polling-site-fivethirtyeight\/"},"modified":"2025-03-07T17:34:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:34:59","slug":"abc-shuts-down-pro-leftist-polling-site-fivethirtyeight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/abc-shuts-down-pro-leftist-polling-site-fivethirtyeight\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC Shuts Down Pro-Leftist Polling Site FiveThirtyEight"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fabc-shuts-down-pro-leftist-polling-site-fivethirtyeight%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2411162&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>ABC\u2062 news&#8217; decision to shut\u2063 down teh polling\u2063 website FiveThirtyEight has raised questions about\u2064 the mediaS influence on public\u200d perception of political support, particularly for Democrats. Before the\u200d recent\u200b election, \u2063FiveThirtyEight projected that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had a \u200chigher\u2063 chance of winning against Donald Trump. However, these\u200d predictions proved inaccurate, as\u2062 Trump \u2063secured victory in the Electoral College and \u2062the \u200cpopular vote. Critics argue that FiveThirtyEight\u2019s\u2063 forecasts contributed to a \u200cmisleading \u200cnarrative, as they \u2063consistently favored Democratic candidates.<\/p>\n<p>The article highlights discrepancies\u200c between FiveThirtyEight&#8217;s polling and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-leads-biden-for-first-time-in-nbc-poll-hypothetical-election-matchup\/\" title=\"... Leads Biden For First Time In NBC Poll Hypothetical ... Matchup\">actual election outcomes<\/a>, deeming the site&#8217;s predictions \u2062as overly\u2064 optimistic\u2064 for Harris compared to other\u2064 pollsters like RealClearPolitics, which showed\u2063 a much tighter race. Nate Silver, the founder of \u2063fivethirtyeight, faced backlash\u2064 for his erroneous prediction about Florida, where Trump won \u2062by a meaningful margin.<\/p>\n<p>The decline of FiveThirtyEight \u2064reflects\u2064 broader issues of trust in legacy media, with\u2063 claims\u2064 that these organizations no longer effectively support Democratic\u2063 narratives. \u2064The closure \u2063is seen as \u200cindicative of a shift in public\u200b confidence\u200d and the\u200d effectiveness of traditional polling \u2063methods. Ultimately,\u200b it suggests that as media credibility wanes, their ability\u2064 to influence electoral outcomes\u200c diminishes \u2064as well.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>When ABC News announced it was <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/03\/06\/media\/abc-news-boss-read-from-script-as-he-laid-off-fivethirtyeight-workers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">shutting down<\/a> the pollster <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/polls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FiveThirtyEight<\/a>, it called to mind the site&rsquo;s claim that former Vice President Kamala Harris stood a <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20250221083739\/https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/2024-election-forecast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">better chance<\/a> than now-President Donald Trump in November&rsquo;s election. The shutdown shows legacy media, which have <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">long inaccurately boosted perceived support<\/a> for Democrats, are finally losing control.<\/p>\n<p>Just before the election, FiveThirtyEight <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20250306230806\/https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/2024-election-forecast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">claimed<\/a> Harris stood a 50 percent chance of winning to Trump&rsquo;s 49 percent. It said, &ldquo;Polls from more frequently polled, but less well-regarded, firms had shown a more Trump-leaning race&rdquo; but shifted toward Harris before the election.<\/p>\n<p>FiveThirtyEight claimed Trump stood just a 29 percent chance of winning the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/6-steps-the-democrats-will-take-to-fundamentally-alter-america-and-ensure-their-permanent-power\/\" title=\"6 Steps The Democrats Will Take To Fundamentally Alter America And Ensure Their Permanent Power\">national popular vote<\/a> against Harris&rsquo; 71 percent. It also claimed Trump had a meager 1 percent chance of winning in a &ldquo;landslide&rdquo; of more than 350 electoral votes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>These predictions could hardly be further from the truth. While Trump didn&rsquo;t technically win a &ldquo;landslide&rdquo; by the polling site&rsquo;s standards, he won the electoral college <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/11\/05\/us\/elections\/results-president.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">312-226<\/a> &mdash; winning all seven swing states, flipping six that went for former President Joe Biden in 2020. He also won the national popular vote with 49.9 percent to Harris&rsquo; 48.4 percent, becoming the first Republican president to win the popular vote in <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/nexstar_media_wire\/4976301-when-was-the-last-time-the-republican-party-won-the-popular-vote\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">20 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>Nate Silver, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.actuary.org\/sites\/default\/files\/files\/publications\/NateSilver_Bio.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">founder<\/a> and former lead editor of FiveThirtyEight, even suggested Harris could <a href=\"https:\/\/www.natesilver.net\/p\/should-kamala-harris-gamble-on-a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">turn Florida blue<\/a> &mdash; giving her a 21 percent chance of winning the state. &ldquo;A one-in-five chance isn&rsquo;t bad, but it isn&rsquo;t great either.&rdquo; When another X user said a Trump would win Florida by a &ldquo;minimum&rdquo; of eight points, Silver said to &ldquo;stop huffing the Twitter vibes.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Dude you&#8217;ve gotta stop huffing the Twitter vibes. How much money are you willing to bet on a Trump +8 point spread in Florida?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NateSilver538\/status\/1842209084025520214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 4, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div>\n<p>&ldquo;How much money are you willing to bet on a Trump +8 point spread in Florida?&rdquo; Silver asked. The user said he would bet $100,000, and Silver said, &ldquo;Have your lawyer draw up a contract.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear if the two ever signed a contract, but if they did, Silver would be out $100,000. Trump won Florida by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/11\/05\/us\/elections\/results-president.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">13 points<\/a> &mdash; 56 percent to 43 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>FiveThirtyEight also runs a presidential <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20250306181750\/https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/polls\/approval\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">approval rating<\/a>, which had steadily been decreasing in support for Trump since his inauguration, with &ldquo;disapproval&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/3ZkAg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">overtaking<\/a> &ldquo;approval&rdquo; for the first time on March 4. Other pollsters agree the numbers <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/203198\/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">have<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/30\/us\/politics\/trump-approval-polls.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">narrowed<\/a> since inauguration, but according to RealClearPolitics, the ratings have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolling.com\/polls\/approval\/donald-trump\/approval-rating\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stabilized<\/a> with 48.9 percent approval and 47.5 percent disapproval.<\/p>\n<p>RealClearPolitics has shown itself far more reliable than legacy pollsters like FiveThirtyEight. Ahead of the election, RealClearPolitics similarly placed Harris as leading Trump &mdash; but by only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolling.com\/polls\/president\/general\/2024\/trump-vs-harris\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">0.1 percent<\/a>, and its &ldquo;no toss up&rdquo; electoral map showed Trump winning five of seven swing states. Ahead of the election, The New York Times ran a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/31\/us\/politics\/trump-harris-partisan-polls.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hit piece<\/a> against the site for making this prediction &mdash; which turned out to be conservative &mdash; claiming it used &ldquo;low-quality polls.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<blockquote data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<div lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p>The New York Times ran a pathetic hit piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RCPolitics?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@RCPolitics<\/a> last week for its poll averages. In particular, NYT had a meltdown about RCP showing that Trump would win every swing state. <\/p>\n<p>How&rsquo;re we feeling about that today, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@nytimes<\/a>? You absolute clowns. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nozViOtmrq\">pic.twitter.com\/nozViOtmrq<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/seanmdav\/status\/1854189221738639745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 6, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The New York Times was hardly in a place to judge. It placed Harris <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/us\/elections\/polls-president.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ahead<\/a> of Trump by 1 percent and predicted she would win two of the seven swing states, with the candidates in a dead heat in three others. &ldquo;Harris could easily prevail if the polls are underestimating her,&rdquo; the site reads. &ldquo;Trump could win if the polls are underestimating him even slightly.&rdquo; Given the results, they apparently underestimated Trump.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>No wonder Americans are rapidly <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/02\/28\/americans-trust-in-the-propaganda-press-has-literally-never-been-lower-poll\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">losing trust<\/a> in legacy media. FiveThirtyEight <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/01\/08\/stunningly-wrong-iowa-pollster-des-moines-register-face-another-fraud-lawsuit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">referred<\/a> to J. Ann Selzer &mdash; who supposedly found Harris was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/11\/06\/ann-selzers-wrong-pollster-who-saw-harris-winning-red-iowa-misses-bigly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leading Trump<\/a> in Iowa, which he won by 13 points &mdash; as &ldquo;the Best Pollster in Politics.&rdquo; It also published bizarre takes &mdash; attempting to link the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/26\/in-bizarre-screed-fivethirtyeight-falsely-labels-pro-lifers-racist-ignores-racism-of-abortion-industry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pro-life movement to racism<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/07\/29\/fivethirtyeight-declares-focus-on-obesity-a-tactic-of-right-wing-trolls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blaming<\/a> obesity concerns on &ldquo;right-wing trolls.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Seems as if 538 is being shut down because the polling games and information operations they long played on behalf of Democrats are no longer as effective as they need to be to justify their existence,&rdquo; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MZHemingway\/status\/1898030091449295356\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote<\/a> Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway on X.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>ABC News&rsquo; shutdown of FiveThirtyEight shows that as legacy media lose credibility, they lose the ability to boost perceived Democrat support &mdash; and their purpose.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Logan Washburn is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-clark-county-keeps-commercial-addresses-on-voter-rolls\/\" title=\"Lawsuit: Clark County Keeps Commercial Addresses On Voter Rolls\">staff writer covering election integrity<\/a>. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo&#8217;s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABC News&#8217; closure of FiveThirtyEight highlights its flawed predictions favoring Harris over Trump, signaling legacy media&#8217;s waning influence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":2411163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Tablet-chart.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[7261,51753,51755,15698,51754],"class_list":["post-2411162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-abc","tag-fivethirtyeight-2","tag-news-closure","tag-polling","tag-pro-leftist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Tablet-chart.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/507"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411162"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2411166,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411162\/revisions\/2411166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2411163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}