Strick and bird, I agree with you that incorrect poll analysis and the like caused many at the DNC and in the Clinton campaign to be overconfident and lazy, but the above post and a post before saying Silver was partially responsible for Trump is where I disagree (and if it’s largely semantics, well I specialize in that). Silver’s popularity post-2012 undoubtedly spawned major media outlets’ own poll analysis models, but where 538 is different is Silver’s narcissism in only caring about being right. CNN, MSNBC and others looked at Trump and couldn’t fathom the possibility of Trump winning which likely led to their polling models overvaluing Clinton polling. They weren’t terribly off of the poll results, but the confidence levels were too high for the data. I don’t think you can blame Silver and 538 though for other media outlets sucking at their job.
Again, probably just semantics, but that’s what I was getting at.