Back in 2008, when I had a bit more time on my hands, I completely geeked out on the US presidential election. I followed the news obsessively, read election blogs and even played with an interactive electoral college map on a regular basis. At the time Nate Silver was relatively unknown, but became famous, along with his 538.com website, for using big data to more accurately predict the result than anyone else. In 2012 he picked the margin of Obama’s win almost exactly, as well as 50 of 50 states.

I’ve been surprised not to see his commentary more front and centre this year. Part of that might be that his methodology is now much more widespread, but Silver is also someone who didn’t really ‘play nice’ with the established media elite: after all, no-one likes to be shown up as not really knowing what they’re talking about by a nerd with a monster computer model.

All that aside, he’s still killing it over at  538 – check out his coverage of the race and especially this recent post on the role of super delegates if you want serious analysis without the gut-feeling, reading the tea leaves bullshit spouted by most of the pundits out there.