Record of the Press · 2012–Present
Released to the public · 31 OCT 2026File TBL-0009
BAD CALL

Media Dismissed Trump's Candidacy as a Sideshow

17 JUL 2015 · HuffPost, FiveThirtyEight
Screenshot of the page as published at huffingtonpost.com (via Wayback Machine)
EXHIBIT A — Page capture from huffingtonpost.com (via Wayback Machine). Click to open the source.

■ The claim

In July 2015, HuffPost announced it would cover Trump's campaign in its Entertainment section rather than Politics, calling it a sideshow. In November 2015, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver told the media to stop freaking out about Trump's poll leads, putting his nomination chances at well under 20 percent.

■ What actually happened

Trump won the 2016 Republican nomination and then the presidency. In May 2016, Silver published a self-critique admitting FiveThirtyEight's early Trump estimates were overconfident, were not based on a statistical model, and that he had acted like the pundits he usually criticized.

■ The proof

Trump's nomination and election, plus Silver's own published admission of error.

■ Original reporting

■ Corrections, findings & records

■ Wayback Machine copies

Stories sometimes get edited after publication. These links open the Internet Archive's earliest snapshot of each original.

Who it helped: DemocratsTreating Trump as a joke discouraged his supporters from taking his run seriously.

■ Grade

BAD CALL: A confident prediction or dismissal that turned out wrong. Not a lie, but on the record. How we grade →