US elections polling data and projections

(Please see UPDATE at end)

Thru Toby at Vividblurry I've come across a fascinating site devoted to forecasting voting trends and likely outcomes in the upcoming US Presidential elections across the various States - FiveThirtyEight seems to deal in a mass of data and attempts to make sense about what all this might mean for the 4th November. Unless you follow Toby's blog as I do, however (a gay, bored, body-obsessed and ascerbically-witty blogger living in Washington DC), you might not be aware of the FiveThirtyEight blog, and that would be a pity I feel.

It's obviously a very popular site, judging by the large number of comments for most entries, and it has an admirably clear and honest 'FAQ' section where the methodology used and the political affiliations of the two people behind the site (who live in Chicago and California respectively) are laid out; their aim to present their findings in a visually-attractive way has certainly been fulfilled in my opinion; the 'FAQ' also explains, if you're not already aware of it, where the name of the site comes from. Now that we are within 5 weeks of polling day, interest in the US elections is hotting up even for me, something I vowed way back here in January to keep in check until the appropriate stage in preoceedings, but I think that appropriate stage has now been reached.

UPDATE: I've just come this interview with Dan Rather with Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight website; it's well-worth watching (even if, like me, you have no interest in baseball) -



and here's Nate Silver on the Countdown programme with Keith Olbermann; again well worth watching: