2012 U.S. Elections
While FiveThirtyEight devoted a lot of time to coverage of the 2012 Republican party primaries throughout 2011, its first effort to handicap the 2012 Presidential general election was published a year in advance of the election: "Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election" in The New York Times Magazine. Accompanying the online release of this article, Silver also published online "Choose Obama's Re-Election Adventure," an interactive toy that allowed readers to predict the outcome of the election based on their assumptions about three variables: President Obama's favorability ratings, the rate of GDP growth, and how conservative the Republican opponent would be. In February 2012 Silver updated his previous Magazine story with another one, "Why Obama Will Embrace the 99 Percent". This article painted a more optimistic picture of Obama's re-election chances. Another article, "The Fundamentals Now Favor Obama," explained how the model and Obama's prospects had changed between November and February.
Silver published election projections for the presidency and the U.S. Senate, but not for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012. When asked why he did not produce House forecasts in 2012, Silver responded: "There was nothing particularly deep about this choice. We just ran out of time to implement a House model this year, and I'd rather do fewer things well than get spread too thin and not be able to support the product. We'd expect to have House forecasts in 2014".
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