I think Nate should have taken Trump more seriously. Didn’t he predict Hilary to win by some ridiculous percent right up to the end?
With the exception of RCP, 538 was most generous to trump with about 30% win chance vs 1-10% for others. He was way off in primaries thoug.
In the final two days, between 65-72%.
Not to defend Silver too much, but The New York Times was giving Trump an 11% chance, ElectionBettingOdds a 9% chance, and the Huffington Post a 2% chance. Giving Trump better than one-in-four odds made Silver certainly more optimistic about his chances than all the other major mainstream odds sites.
I keep coming back to the journalist who said that you can take Trump either seriously or literally. I really thought this was insightful.
Trump is a salesman and an entertainer. Like Reagan, Trump is a great communicator. Sometimes he is brash. Sometimes he over-states. The news media insists on taking him LITERALLY which means that they often portray him as a bit of a clown.
BUT if you pay attention to what President Trump is really saying, he is hitting all of the important points, People listen. People get it. People want the things that President Trump is doing. The people take Trump SERIOUSLY.
Nothing will go right for the media until they start taking the President of the United States seriously. Everyone else does.