East Lansing Native Nate Silver Talks Early Years, Risk

As the Nov. 5 election nears, one of the names that will be consistently mentioned nationally is actually an East Lansing native: statistician and political analyst Nate Silver. 

Silver and the website he founded, FiveThirtyEight.com, have been political mainstays ever since he accurately predicted the outcome in 49 of 50 states in the 2008 presidential election. FiveThirtyEight is now run by the ABC News team and Silver shares projections and analysis on his Substack page.

ELi spoke with Silver earlier this fall, just as the presidential election was picking up steam. We discussed his new book On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, his hometown influences, and touched on the election engrossing his life.

“I always tell myself, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be my last election’ and it never is,” he said. “I always keep doing it.”

On the Edge is something of a how-to manual, encouraging its readers to be more comfortable taking risks. Silver divides people into two camps: those on the river who are more apt to risk and those in the village, a group more averse to taking chances. ELi asked Silver if his description of the metaphorical village held any connection to East Lansing with its major university, and as a neighbor to the state capitol. 

“I think it’s probably more [from] living in New York now,” he said. “The Big 10 college towns have more humility, and have more net humanity in some ways. So it’s not. It’s not meant to be about [East Lansing].

“Yeah, I guess I’m a little bit of a hypocrite by criticizing the village too much, but I do. I think there is something about the Midwest that tends to keep people grounded unintentionally.”

He clarifies that when he encourages risk taking, it isn’t that he wants people to take up motorcycle riding or daredevil antics. He is talking about taking risks in one’s professional life.

“I think most professionals would be better off taking more risks,” he said. “I think people are in a mindset where they’re used to a scarcity mindset, and we live in a wealthy country, an abundant country. We have a social safety net. Maybe we should have more of one, I don’t know.”

He pondered whether risk skips generations, saying that his own parents are “fairly risk averse.”

“They’re lovable but slightly neurotic academic types,” he said. “But I picked up the virtue of hard work.”

Silver spoke affectionately about a grandfather who drove from Connecticut to the west coast to find employment and other ancestors who were legendary poker and ginny players.

Silver’s interest in politics might originate with his parents, Brian Silver, a retired political science professor from Michigan State University, and Sally Silver, a well-known community organizer who was a longtime leader of the Bailey Community Association, helping guide the neighborhood they still call home.

“He did take an interest in politics because it was numbers as much as anything,” Brian Silver told ELi in a phone conversation. “I don’t think he was motivated by party or political stuff, but it’s always been interesting to him, just like sports, trying to predict winners and losers. I think he did see politics as an extension of his interest in sports. It’s a sport for him. It’s a challenge to do an analysis and try to predict outcomes and margins.”

According to his father, Silver’s interest in numbers earned him a nickname amongst kindergarten friends: Numbers.

“He was incredibly alert when he was very young, to everything,” Brian Silver said. “He got his exposure with Sesame Street. At one point, I remember, he was learning numbers, high numbers, and he asked me the simple question, ‘Do numbers ever stop?’ And I said, ‘No, they don’t.’ He started counting. Some hours later, he was into the thousands. He posed a challenge to himself and counted.”

Silver is less descriptive, almost cautious, in remembering his hometown.

“It’s kind of a classic Big 10 college town,” he said. “There are lots of good things about EL. It’s a diverse place. You’ve got a lot of college educated people, the whole kind of Lansing mix of college professors on the one hand, but [also] an auto town and the State Capitol.

“You never had, like the fanciness that you had in Ann Arbor, or something like that. It’s not Boulder or Madison, but you know it’s gotta be a very good place to live in, to grow up.”

He recalled going to The Peanut Barrel with his parents and his own hangout, Pinball Pete’s.

“I was probably there three to four times per week,” he said, “eating there, drinking their cheap, weird fountain sodas, and popping quarters into machines.”

Brian Silver remembers a smart boy obsessed with baseball.

“Baseball was all about numbers,” he said, “runs and hits and averages, wins and losses and so forth. He watched baseball, partially because he was interested in the sport but also because it was full of numbers and they were constantly changing on the screen or at the game.”

The Silver family moved to East Lansing in 1975, two years before Nate was born. According to Brian Silver, it was a great fit, with Nate and his sister enjoying a good school system and plenty of opportunity.  

When asked about influences from East Lansing High School, Silver cited two: calculus teacher Jim Steidle and AP English teacher George Graeber.

“I’ve gotta thank Steidle for riding my ass,” he said. “I got some mediocre grades in calculus and probably should have done better.” 

Silver remembered Graeber as someone who “cared deeply about their students.”

“I was proud to go to ELHS,” he added.

ELi reached out to Graeber to ask if he remembered teaching Silver. The educator retired in 2001 after 26 years in the classroom, but easily recalled the pupil he taught nearly 30 years ago.

“I remember especially what a bright kid he was,” Graeber said. “I think I had him in AP English [and] that was a class of the best and the brightest and he stood out. I remember what a natural writer he was. Even then, we knew the field he was interested in was statistics, but he had a real gift for writing. I haven’t read his latest book but I did read the first one and saw what a pro he is.”

Silver shared his thoughts about the division and angst that has preempted the American political landscape.

“I hope we can combat it,” he said. “It’s very hard to deescalate, right? It’s very hard to like turn the other cheek, because people are confrontational. People get into politics because they feel aggrieved or they feel passionate.

“Sometimes saying nothing is valuable. Somehow, society functions despite all our differences. But yeah, it’s scary. People don’t want to talk about it right. We’ve had two assassination attempts on the former president. [We’ve] had January 6 that could very easily have become the worst incident since the Civil War. I’m worried, to be honest, for the country.”

Silver said recognizing our “shared humanity” could help improve things.

“This is going to sound weird, but Michigan is a big sports state and Michigan State is a big sports university, right? I think shared things like that are probably helpful to have and are relatively healthy channels for aggression.”

With the election just weeks away, Silver said that he was looking forward to relaxing when it’s all said and done.

“Election years are interesting and fun to cover up to a point,” he said. “But then people get a little crazy. So, I’m going to be decompressing and see what happens to the country.”