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FiveThirtyEight, sometimes referred to as 538, is a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in the United States electoral college,[538 1] was founded on March 7, 2008, as a polling aggregation website with a blog created by analyst Nate Silver. In August 2010, the blog became a licensed feature of The New York Times online. It was renamed FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus. In July 2013, ESPN announced that it would become the owner of the FiveThirtyEight brand and site, and Silver was appointed as editor-in-chief.[2] The ESPN-owned FiveThirtyEight began publication on March 17, 2014. In the ESPN era, the FiveThirtyEight blog has covered a broad spectrum of subjects including politics, sports, science, economics, and popular culture.
During the U.S. presidential primaries and general election of 2008, the site compiled polling data through a unique methodology derived from Silver's experience in baseball sabermetrics to "balance out the polls with comparative demographic data."[3] He weighted "each poll based on the pollster's historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll".[4]
Since the 2008 election, the site published articles – typically creating or analyzing statistical information – on a wide variety of topics in current politics and political news. These included a monthly update on the prospects for turnover in the U.S. Senate; federal economic policies; Congressional support for legislation; public support for health care reform, global warming legislation, LGBT rights; elections around the world; marijuana legalization; and numerous other topics. The site and its creator are best known for election forecasts, including the 2012 presidential election in which FiveThirtyEight correctly predicted the vote winner of all 50 states.
During its first five and a half years, FiveThirtyEight won numerous awards both when it was an independent blog and when it was published by The New York Times. These included "Bloggie" Awards for "Best Political Coverage" in 2008 and "Best Weblog about Politics" in 2009, as well as "Webbies" for "Best Political Blog" in 2012 and 2013. In 2016, while under the ownership of ESPN, FiveThirtyEight won the "Data Journalism Website of the Year" award.
The website's logo depicts a fox, in reference to a phrase attributed to Archilochus: "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing
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