It’s pretty weird having a desk to go into in a big office building after having worked at home for the better part of six years, but here I am, trying to make sure that everything us up to speed for our upcoming launch at the New York Times, and that we’ll have the highest possible probability of launching on schedule and with a fully functional site tomorrow. Thus, I can’t promise that we’ll have much in the way of substantive posts for you here at FiveThirtyEight.com today.
The work that my colleagues on the interactive team have done at nytimes.com is terrific and I hope that you’ll be really impressed. I’ve also given the Senate model a relatively thorough statistical makeover and it will now be much more sophisticated in how it estimates the amount of error associated with each forecast (for instance, the more the polling tends to diverge in a given race, the higher the margin of error associated with the prediction), and in how it handles incumbent vis-à-vis open seat races. Plus, we should have our gubernatorial forecasts to launch for you later this week, and our House forecasts soon afterward.
In the meantime, suggestions on good lunch places near 40th & 8th are appreciated, because right now I’m projected to gain about 7 pound a month due to the recent opening of a Shake Shack near the office.