It is weird to think about now, but there was a time when Nate Silver was basically the closest thing the news world had to a rock star. He was the "poblano" blogger from Daily Kos who moved to his own site, then to The New York Times, and then to the Disney-owned ESPN/ABC powerhouse. But if you’ve tried to find the nate silver 538 blog recently, you probably noticed things look... different. Or rather, they aren't there at all.
As of March 2025, the brand 538—or FiveThirtyEight, if you're a traditionalist—was officially shuttered by ABC News. It's over.
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The Rise and Messy Fall of an Empire
Most people remember the 2008 and 2012 cycles where Silver was essentially a god. He called 49 and then 50 states correctly. It felt like math had finally beaten the "gut feeling" pundits who had dominated TV for decades. But the nate silver 538 blog wasn't just about politics. It was a philosophy. It was about applying the same cold, hard logic used in baseball (PECOTA, anyone?) to everything from the Oscars to the price of a burrito.
The decline didn't happen overnight. It was a slow burn of corporate hand-offs and internal friction. When Disney shifted the site from ESPN to ABC News in 2018, the vibe changed. Sports coverage started to feel like a secondary thought. Then, in May 2023, Silver himself left. He took his toys—specifically his famous election forecasting model—and went home. Or, more accurately, he went to Substack to start Silver Bulletin.
What happened to the 538 staff?
Honestly, it was a bit of a bloodbath. When Nate left, ABC didn't just close the doors immediately. They hired G. Elliott Morris from The Economist to try and rebuild the model. They rebranded the site as just "538" and tucked it under the ABC News umbrella.
But by March 2025, Disney decided the math didn't add up anymore. They laid off the remaining 15 employees and pulled the plug on the standalone site. If you visit the old URL now, you’re mostly getting redirected to general ABC News politics pages. The data-driven, "nerd-first" culture that made the nate silver 538 blog a morning ritual for millions is effectively dead in its original form.
Why the Model Conflict Mattered
You've probably heard about the "model wars" during the 2024 election. It was a bizarre moment for fans of data journalism. On one side, you had Nate Silver on his Silver Bulletin Substack, and on the other, you had his old site, 538, now run by Morris.
They disagreed. Frequently.
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- Silver's Model: Tended to be more sensitive to recent polling shifts.
- The New 538 Model: Relied more heavily on "fundamentals" like the economy and incumbency.
- The Result: Confusion.
For the average reader who just wanted to know who was going to win, having two different "official" 538-style forecasts was exhausting. Silver openly criticized the new 538 model, calling it "cautious" and arguing it didn't pay enough attention to what the polls were actually saying. It was a public breakup that played out in rows of spreadsheet cells.
The E-E-A-T of Data Journalism: Is It Trustworthy?
Data journalism has a bit of an image problem these days. After the 2016 miss—where 538 actually gave Trump a much higher chance than most (about 29%), but people still felt burned—the public's relationship with "the needle" became toxic.
Nate Silver always argued that a 30% chance of something happening is not a 0% chance. If you play Russian Roulette, there's a 16.6% chance you die. You wouldn't take those odds, right? But in politics, if the 30% underdog wins, people scream that the "math was wrong."
This tension is likely why ABC eventually gave up. Maintaining a complex, controversial statistical engine is expensive and draws a lot of fire when things go sideways. Legacy media outlets like ABC often prefer the safety of traditional reporting over the volatility of a probabilistic model that might make them look silly on election night.
Where can you find that content now?
If you're looking for that specific nate silver 538 blog energy, you have to follow the people, not the brand.
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- Silver Bulletin: Nate's current home. It's more personal, more frequent, and includes his thoughts on poker and risk-taking.
- Strength in Numbers: G. Elliott Morris's new Substack, launched after the ABC layoffs. He’s trying to keep the "serious" data journalism flame alive.
- The Data Archives: Much of the old 538 data is still out there in GitHub repositories, though the interactive graphics are mostly broken or archived.
Practical Next Steps for Data Nerds
If you’re still mourning the loss of your favorite blog, you don't have to go back to watching cable news pundits yell at each other. Here is how to keep your data diet healthy:
Diversify your forecasters. Never trust just one model. Look at Silver Bulletin, Decision Desk HQ, and even betting markets like Polymarket (where Silver is actually an advisor now).
Learn to read the "Uncertainty." The most important part of the old nate silver 538 blog wasn't the top-line number; it was the "fat tails" of the distribution. If a model says a race is 52-48, that is a coin flip. Treat it as such.
Follow the individual writers. Most of the 538 "all-stars" like Clare Malone, Perry Bacon Jr. (who is at The Washington Post), and Maggie Koerth are still writing. They just aren't all under one roof anymore.
The era of the centralized "data blog" that everyone agrees on is over. We’re in a fragmented world now. It’s more work for the reader, but honestly? It’s probably more accurate that way. No one person should own the "truth" of the numbers.
To stay updated on the latest election modeling and polling methodology, your best bet is to subscribe to Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin on Substack and follow the "538 Alumni" list on social media platforms like X or Bluesky.