Back in 2004, I was only 16 years old. I came to Daily Kos as a youth, full of passion, wanting to see the world changed for the better. It was hard growing up in Southeast Louisiana as a proponent of gay rights, someone who didn’t go to church much, and an aspiring scientist. I remember back then, I supported a guy named Howard Dean… wonderful guy, thought he would take the world to a better place. John Kerry ended up getting the nomination and while he wasn’t my first choice, I phone banked and campaigned… yes, way back in 2004 when I was 16 years old! Dailykos was a beautiful place back then. Still is.
A senator with a funny name spoke at the Democratic National Convention, and it was the most inspiring speech I had ever heard even to this day. I was so hopeful. I remember coming here for comfort, as polls went up and down and I struggled to figure out what was happening. As a kid I felt powerless, but engaged. When Kerry lost to Bush, I was just… distraught beyond all measure. Dailykos was always there for me though, always such a good place to feel… comfortable and happy, ready to take on the next round.
After Obama won, I stopped coming here for a long time. I just didn’t find a need to. I was doing a lot of other things with my life, and I was just happy that I could live under a Democratic president. It’s crazy to think that was nearly 8 years ago. I remember in college, I changed majors no less than 5 times, not knowing what my calling was in this world. I remember finding a site called Reddit, also much less busy at the time I joined. It was a good place to expand my horizon.
Sometime 4 years ago, I decided to take a huge leap and join a PhD program for Sociology. I knew I was a numbers guy and had a heavy math streak, but I have never been able to let go of my love for people. It has been a pleasure to be a part of my sociology program and work with people who are just… incredible, truthfully amazing scholars. Something always felt wrong to me though — I didn’t seem destined for academia. I kept wanting to get involved.
I was quickly identified as one of the best statistical minds in my program. I took every single methods class I could find, because I could not get enough of it. I quickly learned that things that seemed chaotic to me were actually very predictable, and this feeling was empowering to that same boy who felt so powerless and confused in 2004. I was able to use my knowledge to better humanity, even if it was only locally. I got involved in a violence reduction initiative that reduced murders in my city by 26%. I got involved in predicting student dropouts, letting colleges save their students up to 9 months in advance with extreme accuracy. A few years ago, I even was invited on by the Louisiana Department of Corrections to develop an algorithm to predict the risk of someone recidivating. Louisiana is the most incarcerated slice of land on this planet, and I had a real drive to FIX that. My model will now be used to help get people who don’t belong behind bars out and to help them get on with their lives, give them proper education and skills, and this is something I truly feel good about.
A few months ago, I realized that I was getting back into politics again. I loved the race, and was extremely torn between candidates. Eventually I landed on Clinton, although I really did (and still do) feel like both Clinton and Sanders made me proud to be a Democrat. Something sparked in me, and knowing my ability to make accurate predictions, I wanted to see what I could do with politics. So on Reddit, I looked to New Hampshire.
One thing that is always lacking in watching the primaries is knowledge of how a candidate is doing from early returns. It isn’t like generals, where most counties have been reliably red or blue for decades. Watching early returns in primaries can be confusing as hell — and to me, someone who loves prediction, I hate confusion. So what did I do? I began working on a model, and published my first results in Reddit. It was formatted, ugly, but it got the job done. I posted in /r/sandersforpresident and /r/hillaryclinton at the time — both camps absolutely loved me, even though I made it clear from the getgo that I had a candidate I supported.
I nailed New Hampshire.
They wanted me to do it again. I looked at Nevada… Oh Crap. It’s all precinct level — there are barely any counties there. Oh well… I have modelling techniques that I can use. I used them, applied everything I knew, and went in swinging. When the first precincts started to drop, I instantly knew how the race would go, because my model was strong — Clinton was winning white areas of Western Las Vegas, and I had benchmarked her to do well in the more Hispanic areas… I called that race about 2 hours before any news network did.
I nailed Nevada.
At this point, everyone who knew me on Reddit was clamoring for me to make a website. I had no idea how. I am not a web programmer, I am a statistician. So I got a blogger platform, got a friend to help me with the basics, and started posting every single race. I knew I was bound to get some wrong, but I had faith in my model. All models have some sort of error. At the time it was nothing more than a curiosity to me, something to pass the time and make the confusing predictable. It was also at this point that Ian Coggins, a fellow redditor, asked if I needed any help — I did, I was not getting any money to do any of this and in fact it was costing me some… and time, it was a major time sink. He’s been an incredible help ever since.
I didn’t stop. I made a twitter account and people started following every word. I was floored and my hobby quickly grew into a major time investment. But I was happy — I knew I was providing a service people loved. My little demographic model weighted onto polls provided something nobody else had — a way to not only look at states, but individual counties through the lens of prediction and demographics. Very quickly, it became apparent that my baby model was growing up fast. It became more predictive than any other forecaster. I started thinking, “wow… could I really be doing better than Nate Silver?” I was though… there was no doubt about it, I was blowing away the best in the business and nobody even knew who I was.
The run was rocky. We had some rough points as I developed the model more and more. We made a few bad calls, but no worse than Silver or any pollster or any other forecaster. I remember when Michigan hit, it was a big deal… because even though we got it wrong on the benchmarks, I used the benchmarks to make an early call on the race. 2 hours before anybody called it, with people watching expecting a Clinton victory, I called it for Sanders — I knew who would win it, my model told me so. We got a lot of accolades and notice after that. Since then, we’ve only increased our accuracy. We had a few states wrong… Rhode Island, Indiana… but we got so many right… New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, we nailed Maryland and even got a county that we benchmarked at +60% (and NOBODY believed us that it would be, PG county) to come in right at what we projected. North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, it didn’t stop. We were consistently beating everyone, and even in the states we got wrong, we were beating Silver, every poll, RCP. Someone sent us an amazing accuracy chart, which we still keep up to this day. We remain the most accurate.
I knew I would be picked up by somebody, and I prepared for it. It could have been anybody. It ended up being BNR, and after many talks with their staff, with the people who run it, and those who have followed it, I am so pleased with my decision. I have a wife, a kid, and I am in graduate school — I struggle. I grew up poor, even homeless at some point when my mothers house burned down. To be able to provide for my child while doing what I love is a dream. If anyone doubts my sincerity in what I do, they need only to look at my history.
I do not know what the future of my model will be. It may tank, it may continue to be the most accurate model out there — but this journey has been incredible. Just know that when I run my model, it is based on the passion that you read above — the same drive to derive signal from noise that this 16 year old boy getting on Dailykos for comfort had in 2004. There is a funny thing about bias, about some of the things some of the less kind people have said about me — as a statistician, as a scientist, there is a certain comfort in science as a candle in the dark. The numbers are what they are. Bias will quickly reveal itself when mathematical scrutiny is assigned through inaccuracy. I hope you let my accuracy speak for itself and will continue to follow my work — no matter how the next few months go, we’re only just beginning.