'Fixed it for you': Nate Silver's claim about what cost Hillary the election gets 'stated differently'

Paul Krugman has repeatedly blamed James Comey and Vladimir Putin for Hillary Clinton’s election loss, and FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver seems to agree, saying that the Clinton team’s strategy would have worked if not for the FBI director and Russia:

Clinton should have campaigned more in MI, WI, which 538 model often ranked among tipping-point states. But it didn't cost her the election.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

Clinton would still have lost the Electoral College with both MI & WI. She needed either PA or FL too, which she campaigned in plenty.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

Clinton lost 4 states (FL, MI, WI, PA) by ~1 point. If not for Comey/Russia, she probably wins them all by ~2 points & strategy looks great.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

So if you're going to second-guess, a way better question is whether Clinton needed a better October Surprise response strategy.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

They were caught very flat-flooted on the Comey letter. Not an easy thing to respond to, but they didn't have much of a strategy at all.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

“Probably” being the operative word in an above tweet. Here’s another way to put Silver’s hypothesis:

https://twitter.com/MiltonWolfMD/status/807672704237178880
https://twitter.com/mugsynina/status/807671159542218752

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Yep. If Hillary hadn’t tried to skirt the system the FBI wouldn’t have been in the picture at all. As for those guesses why Hillary lost, the science is not settled:

Data journalism is dead. https://t.co/rIg4BCPz5s

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) December 10, 2016

There isn't any data anywhere showing Comey caused a three point swing. Where is he coming up with this?

— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) December 10, 2016

https://twitter.com/LilMissRightie/status/807668542082600960

https://twitter.com/right_sider/status/807670141915774976

Weren't you saying on Nov. 7 that was the probable outcome WITH "Comey/Russia"? https://t.co/5N0vAbYuoT

— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) December 10, 2016

https://twitter.com/twitmadin/status/807648662369300481

And it won’t stop any time soon.