The Most Interesting People I Know
News:Politics
David Shor is a data scientist and the former head of political data science for Civis Analytics, a Democratic think tank. In 2012, he developed the Obama campaign’s in-house election forecasting system, which accurately predicted the outcome to within a point in every state. David was the subject of some controversy this summer when he was fired following his tweeting of an academic paper. The paper argued that violent protests decreased Democratic presidential vote share while nonviolent protests increased vote share. Unfortunately, David is not at liberty to discuss the details of this incident, which is an excellent example of what happens when employment protections don’t exist.
I want to state up front that the focus of this episode is on how to improve the electoral prospects of Democrats, which is David’s expertise. I have many disagreements with the Democratic party and its leaders, and there are many pathways to power beyond electoral politics. But America’s political institutions are extremely powerful, and ensuring that they are controlled by the non-death cult party is important.
We discuss:
Links:
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Matt Grossman on Twitter
David Shor on Twitter
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