In Episode 167 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with political data scientist David Shor. David was recently described in New York Magazine as Obama’s “In-House Nate Silver” for his work on the president’s re-election campaign where he was responsible for building and maintaining the campaign's election forecasting system, which accurately predicted the outcome to within a point in every state and was the primary input to the campaign's resource allocation decisions in the 2012 election.

In this conversation, David shares his theory about why Democrats have struggled to win elections in recent years, why the polls have been so off in both of the last two presidential elections, and what the implications of his findings are for the viability of the party and its ideological platform and rhetoric. 

We also look at how Republicans gained support from African American men and Hispanics in an election year that we were told was supposed to be a referendum on white privilege. Does this mean that identity politics has run its course, or does it just validate the assertions of people like New York Times op-ed columnist Charles Blow who claim that this is simply further evidence of the entrenchment of white supremacy in American society?

David also shares his predictions on the Georgia senate races and gives his opinion on how polling should be reformed. Lastly, Shor explains how education levels correlate with ideological extremism, how this has put Democratic candidates out of step with the majority of Americans, and what this means for policy choices in the event that the Democrats retake control of the senate in 2020 or 2022. 

You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 12/01/2020

David Shor was previously Head of Political Data Science at Civis Analytics between 2012-2020. He lead the company’s efforts in devising survey methodology for polling operation, helped to operationalize & interpret hundreds of large RCTs, developed an automated forecasting/decision-making product that is used by large swathes of Democratic party leadership, etc. Prior to joining Civis, David was an important part of Barack Obama’s 2012 data analytics team, responsible for maintaining the campaign's election forecasting system, The Golden Report, which accurately predicted the outcome to within a point in every state and was the primary input to the campaign's resource allocation decisions. His background is in pure mathematics, with a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University. Shor was also one of only five students nationwide to be awarded a full scholarship to study in Moscow as part of a joint math program between FIU, the Independent University of Moscow, and the Russian Higher School of Economics.