NEW: Election Forecaster That ‘Predicted’ Kamala Victory Closes Down

The political forecasting site FiveThirtyEight, best known for its election predictions and statistical analysis, is shutting down as part of sweeping layoffs at ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks. The decision, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes just months after the site projected a narrow victory for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election—an outcome that ultimately did not materialize.

According to sources familiar with the matter, approximately 200 employees across Disney’s ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks division are losing their jobs. The cuts amount to nearly 6% of the total workforce across both units.

FiveThirtyEight, founded by statistician Nate Silver in 2008, gained prominence for its data-driven approach to political forecasting. However, its recent election modeling, which predicted a dead heat between Harris and Donald Trump, had drawn skepticism from conservative critics. The site’s projections had Harris winning 50 out of 100 simulations, while Trump secured 49—only for the actual election results to deliver a decisive victory for the Republican.

The shuttering of FiveThirtyEight reflects larger upheavals within media companies struggling to remain profitable in an era of declining ad revenue and shifting audience preferences. ABC News, which acquired FiveThirtyEight in 2018, had already made significant staffing reductions last year. The latest round of layoffs suggests deeper financial strains within Disney’s news operations.

via FiveThirtyEight

ABC News will now undergo significant restructuring, including merging the news magazine shows “20/20” and “Nightline” into a single program. The consolidation is part of broader cuts that will see 15 additional layoffs following the shutdown of the statistics-focused website FiveThirtyEight.

Additionally, the production teams for the various hours of “Good Morning America” will be unified into one group. The Disney Entertainment Networks unit, home to channels like Freeform and FX, will also experience reductions in staff, particularly in the areas of program scheduling and planning.

The layoffs will reportedly affect nearly 6% of the total workforce across ABC News and Disney Entertainment, with announcements expected to be made to employees this week, according to WSJ. The cutbacks follow a downturn at FiveThirtyEight, which became prominent for its predictive analytics and election coverage but has struggled since founder Nate Silver departed two years ago after his contract with Disney ended.

“Oh geez, I just saw the news about 538. My heart goes out to the people there,” Silver posted on X. “They were tremendously hard-working and produced a lot of extremely valuable data and insight for everyone who wants to understand politics better. They deserved much better.”

“The basic issue is that Disney was never particularly interested in running FiveThirtyEight as a business, even though I think it could have been a good business,” Silver later wrote on his Silver Bulletin Substack. “Although they were generous in maintaining the site for so long and almost never interfered in our editorial process, the sort of muscle memory a media property builds early in its tenure tends to stick.”

“We had an incredibly talented editorial staff, but we never had enough ‘product’ people or strategy people to help the business grow and sustain itself. It’s always an uphill battle under those conditions, particularly when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff, who were constantly being poached by outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post.”