David Shor (born 1991)
is an American
data scientist and
political consultant
Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely tel ...
known for analyzing political polls. He serves as head of data science with Blue Rose Research
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, and is a senior fellow with the
Center for American Progress
The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a public policy research and advocacy organization which presents a liberal viewpoint on economic and social issues. It has its headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The president and chief executive offic ...
Action Fund. Shor advised a number of liberal
political action committees during the
2020 United States elections.
Early life
Shor grew up in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, in a
Sephardic Jewish family. He holds a mathematics degree from
Florida International University
Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Miami-Dade County. Founded in 1965, the school opened its doors to students in 1972. FIU has grown to become the third-largest university in Florid ...
. Shor was a precocious child and gifted in mathematics, starting his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 and finishing at the age of 17.
Shor was awarded the
Math in Moscow scholarship in fall 2009.
Career
Shor joined the
Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign at the age of 20, working on the
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
-based team that tracked internal and external polls and developed forecasts. The team Shor worked with developed a polling forecasting model, known as "The Golden Report", that projected Obama's vote share within one percentage point in eight of the nine
battleground states.
''New York Magazine'' described Shor as the "in-house
Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, writer, and poker player who analyzes baseball (see sabermetrics), basketball, and elections (see psephology). He is the founder and editor-in-chief of ''FiveThirtyEigh ...
" of the Obama campaign.
Shor then worked as a senior data scientist with
Civis Analytics
Civis Analytics is a US data science software and consultancy company founded by Dan Wagner in 2013, with backing by Eric Schmidt. Wagner had served as the Chief Analytics Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.
Civis Analytics ...
in Chicago
for seven years, where he operated the company's web-based survey. On May 28, 2020, Shor
tweeted
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
a summary of an academic study by
Omar Wasow, a black political scientist at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, that argued
riots following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination likely tipped the
1968 presidential election in
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's favor. Some critics argued that Shor's tweet, which was posted during the height of the
George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internat ...
, could be interpreted as criticism of the
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police br ...
movement.
Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Benjamin Chait () (born May 1, 1972) is an American pundit and writer for '' New York'' magazine. He was previously a senior editor at ''The New Republic'' and an assistant editor of '' The American Prospect''. He writes a periodic c ...
wrote in ''New York Magazine'' that "At least some employees and clients on Civis Analytics complained that Shor’s tweet threatened their safety."
Shor apologized for the tweet on May 29, and he was fired from Civis Analytics a few days later.
Since 2020, his work at Blue Rose Research aims to develop a data-based model to predict the outcome of future elections on the basis of simulations, designed in particular to advise the
Democratic Party in
campaign
Campaign or The Campaign may refer to:
Types of campaigns
* Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed
*Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme
* Bl ...
strategies.
Shor is an advocate for what he terms "popularism", the idea that Democrats should campaign on a strategy of focusing on issues that enjoy electoral popularity, such as focusing on economic issues over polarizing social and cultural issues.
Some political analysts, including
Michael Podhorzer, have criticized his work for a lack of transparency regarding his methods and data sources.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*
Website of Blue Rose Research"Noah Smith interviews David Shor" an hour-long interview with Bloomberg opinion writer Noah Smith
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shor, David
1991 births
American Orthodox Jews
American political consultants
Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign
Data scientists
Democratic Party (United States) politicians
Florida International University alumni
Living people
People from Miami
Scientists from Florida
21st-century American Jews