Washington glows unlike any other on the right day when the sun reflects off the gold-lined pockets of America’s politicians and lobbyists. One can’t help but feel blinded by the sheer capitalistic nature of the situation. The politicians—kings of fame and faithfully exorbitant donations—can stride confidently through what has become their playground, unafraid of public opinion, any expectation of passing productive legislation, or holding themselves to a moral code.
This attitude permeates the entire city, and with good reason: campaign donations endorse it. Few can escape its alluring grasp, and fewer still challenge it. Yet one man can make even the hardiest Washingtonian shake in his Gucci slippers and inspire Congressmen to tremble beneath their oily campaign war chests. Mitch McConnell wakes up in the middle of the night screaming his name and Ezra Klein studied the ancient Haitian art of Voodoo to give himself a competitive advantage.
I’m talking about Nate Silver, the Jewish man from Eastern Michigan who everyone in Washington wants on their team. He first burst onto the scene in 2003, writing for Baseball Prospectus and revolutionizing the fantasy baseball industry. Silver then branched out in 2008, creating a political modeling website named FiveThirtyEight.com (a reference to the number of electors in the Electoral college) with the idea of reaching a wider audience than just fantasy baseball players. The website predicted the outcomes of nationwide elections using a weighted poll aggregator designed by Silver himself. His methodology first predicted a big win for the Democrats in 2008, which the Republicans conveniently ignored. But when he correctly predicted every senate race being held that year as well, he was impossible to ignore.
Republicans’ anger with Silver dissipated by 2010, when Silver correctly predicted a Republican takeover of the house. Then, the Democrats weren’t too fond of him. He later became a national celebrity over the 2012 cycle, with Republicans viciously attacking his pro-Democratic predictions. The Democrats, in turn, labeled him the second coming of the Oracle at Delphi.
Most readers should know the story from here: Silver was right and everyone was awed. He went from loved to hated and hated to loved faster than Bill Clinton. And, just as Bill Clinton never seems to step out of the spotlight, Nate Silver has returned for the 2014 midterm election cycle. On March 23, he offered a decisive prediction: the Republicans would take the Senate 51 seats to 49.
But instead of offering the typical irate denouncement, Democrats responded differently this time. While maintaining that Silver’s predictions left room for error, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began sending out emails saying that because Silver predicted big losses, the Democrats needed to raise huge amounts of money to remedy the situation. At first glance, this may look ridiculous. It probably even looks ridiculous after the second and third looks as well. That’s mostly because it is.
Silver’s methodology relies on candidate quality, state partisanship, incumbency, and head to head polls. Both state partisanship and incumbency pay virtually no attention to fundraising capabilities; candidate quality and head to head polls both rely on a variety of factors, fundraising being just one aspect of them.
But their strategy could work. The Democrats have been known for huge fundraising capabilities in the past and this jolt from Silver’s dismal prediction may lead them to raise enough money to prove it wrong. Silver mostly confirmed what many political minds in D.C. have been thinking for months, but he also gave much needed publicity to a major problem for the Democrats—relying on donors funds to change their fate.
Regardless of whether one roots for the Republicans or the Democrats, money shouldn’t greatly alter the outcome of a campaign like this. Donors spent $7 billion on the most recent Presidential election and $4 billion on the 2010 midterm elections. This money sometimes goes to worthy advertising—like Mitch McConnell’s recent video that Jon Stewart turned into the national phenomenon of #McConnelling—but much of it goes to attack ads in places like rural West Virginia.
The clear answer here should be to return to the McCain-Feingold reform act of 2002—which didn’t even take all the money out of politics, but just put something vaguely similar to a cap on donations. Sometimes, however, the clear answer isn’t the popular one in Washington. And until something gets done, Silver may have to deal with the possibility of enormous donations skewing his models.