Daunting numbers
New York Times stats man gives Bill White a 16.5 percent chance against Rick Perry
Of all the experienced political pollsters judging the 2008 elections, no one came closer to predicting the final results than Nate Silver, a young statistician who founded FiveThirtyEight.com.
Now Silver's work has been folded into The New York Times, and he's turned his attention to the Texas governor's race. And his predictions should be music to Rick Perry's ears.
Silver is projecting the election results to give Republican current governor Rick Perry 51.9 percent of the vote, with Democrat and former Houston mayor Bill White earning 45.1 percent.
While this is a bigger number for Perry than the oft-quoted Rasmussen poll of him leading 49-41, it actually reflects a tightening of the race in Silver's methodology. And with a margin of error of seven points — greater than the 6.8 point difference between the figures — Silver still allows that anything can happen.
He gives White a 16.5 percent chance of winning the race, his highest figure since Feb 1. (Perry conversely has a commanding 83.5 percent chance of keeping his grip on the office.)
With many people waiting until the end of the summer to pay attention to the election season, both campaigns are gearing up for a furious fall. It looks like we won't know who's going to come out on top until Nov. 2.
