Nate Silver Called the Election, Now He Wants You to Buy His Book

Alexander C. Kaufman
Nate Silver Called the Election, Now He Wants You to Buy His Book (Updated)

So it seems Nate Silver, the New York Times' polling guru isn't "a joke," after all.

In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 6 decision, Silver skyrocketed to mainstream-media fame as political junkies neurotically checked his FiveThirtyEight blog for the latest polling numbers.

Early on, he predicted a President Obama win; naysayers said the prediction would make him a "one-term celebrity."

Also read: Election Predictions: From Nate Silver to HuffPo, Who Got It Right?

He even drew criticism from the Times' public editor Margaret Sullivan for betting MSNBC's Joe Scarborough -- who called Silver "a joke" -- that Obama would win.

But as Obama claimed Ohio and won the election, pundits showered the professional poker player-turned-journalist with praise.

"You know who won the election tonight? Nate Silver," Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC.

Fox News' Bret Baier also acknowledged Silver's accuracy on air.

Stopping short of a full victory lap, Silver plugged his book in a tweet after the Times called the election for Obama.

"The Signal and the Noise," his first book released in September, chronicles Silver's methods for distilling mounds of data into a reliable forecast.

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