Can Nate Silver (and friends) nail their presidential predictions?

A snapshot, as of noon PT on Monday, of the state of the presidential election, as seen by five polling aggregators.

(Credit: Illustration by James Martin/CNET, Data by Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Anyone who's even remotely interested in this year's contest between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has no doubt seen countless polls, many of which have shown the incumbent in the lead, while many others have given the nod to the challenger.

In recent weeks, many headlines have declared the election a tossup. A common narrative being spread in newspapers, on blogs, on social media, and on TV nationwide, is that no one will have any idea who will be elected president until all the counting is done because the race is simply too close to call.

But adherents of another school of thought are scoffing at that notion. To them, it's long been evident that President Obama is cruising comfortably to a second term, never mind the fact that the polls don't start closing on the East Coast for 13 more hours.

Welcome to the world of polling aggregators, a group of people and organizations who lay claim to confidence, based on math and science, that they can p... [Read more]