David Shor

Shor grew up in Miami, Florida, in a Sephardic Jewish family of Moroccan origins.{{cite tweet |last=Shor |first=David |user=davidshor |date=March 7, 2016 |title=My sephardic {{sic|Mor|rocan|hide=y}} relatives don't believe me when tell them that American Jews have historically been left-wing |number=706708886825394177 |access-date=August 13, 2021}} He holds a mathematics degree from Florida International University.{{Cite web|title=See why @davidshor of @CivisAnalytics is one of @crainschicago #Crain20s|url=https://www.chicagobusiness.com/static/section/20-in-their-20s-2018@recipient=shor.html|access-date=2021-03-03|website=Crain's Chicago Business|language=en}} 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.{{cite magazine|last=Graff|first=Garrett M.|author-link=Garrett Graff|date=June 6, 2016|title=The Polls Are All Wrong. A Startup Called Civis Is Our Best Hope to Fix Them|magazine=Wired|url=https://www.wired.com/2016/06/civis-election-polling-clinton-sanders-trump/|access-date=2021-03-04|issn=1059-1028}} Shor was awarded the Math in Moscow scholarship in fall 2009.{{Cite web|title=Our Alumni List – Math in Moscow|url=https://mathinmoscow.org/alumni-list/|access-date=2021-03-04|website=mathinmoscow.org}}

Shor joined the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign at the age of 20,{{Cite web|date=2021-01-06|title=One Needle to Predict Them All|url=https://slate.com/podcasts/the-gist/2021/01/new-york-times-polling-and-georgia|access-date=2021-03-04|website=Slate Magazine|language=en}} working on the Chicago-based team that tracked internal and external polls and developed forecasts.{{Cite web|title=See why @davidshor of @CivisAnalytics is one of @crainschicago #Crain20s|url=https://www.chicagobusiness.com/static/section/20-in-their-20s-2018@recipient=shor.html|access-date=2021-03-03|website=Crain's Chicago Business|language=en}} The team Shor worked with developed a polling forecasting model, known as "The Golden Report",{{Cite web |last=Newton |first=Ben |date=2018-10-27 |title=An Interview with David Shor – A Master of Political Data |url=https://medium.com/newtonian-nuggets/an-interview-with-david-shor-a-master-of-political-data-c2fa735731af |access-date=2021-03-04 |website=Medium |language=en}} that projected Obama's vote share within one percentage point in eight of the nine battleground states.{{Cite web|title=Data Science Seminar Series (DS3)|url=http://pages.stat.wisc.edu/~karlrohe/ds3.html|access-date=2021-03-03|website=pages.stat.wisc.edu}} New York Magazine described Shor as the "in-house Nate Silver" of the Obama campaign.{{Cite web |last=Levitz |first=Eric |date=2020-07-17 |title=David Shor's Unified Theory of American Politics |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html |access-date=2022-03-13 |website=Intelligencer |language=en-us}}{{Cite news |last=Lourie Cohen |first=Hillel |date=2022-11-02 |title=Why U.S. Jewish Voters Are Bucking the Worldwide Trend and Still Voting Democrat |language=en |work=Haaretz |url=https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-why-u-s-jewish-voters-are-bucking-the-worldwide-trend-and-still-voting-democrat-1.9278779 |access-date=2022-03-13}}

{{Tweet

| name = (((David Shor)))

| username = davidshor

| date = May 28, 2020

| text = Post-MLK-{{sic|assasination|nolink=y}} race riots reduced Democratic vote share in surrounding counties by 2%, which was enough to tip the 1968 election to Nixon. Non-violent protests *increase* Dem vote, mainly by encouraging warm elite discourse and media coverage. http://omarwasow.com/Protests_on_Voting.pdf

| ID = 1265998625836019712

| width = 300px

}}

Shor then worked as a senior data scientist with Civis Analytics in Chicago for seven years,{{Cite web|title=MIDAS & Dept. Political Science Co-Present: David Shor – Democratic Political Data Scientist|url=https://midas.umich.edu/event/midas-seminar-series-presents-david-shor-democratic-political-data-scientist/|access-date=2021-03-04|website=MIDAS|language=en-US}} where he operated the company's web-based survey.{{cite web|last=Matthews|first=Dylan|date=2020-11-10|title=One Pollster's Explanation for Why the Polls Got It Wrong|url=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/10/21551766/election-polls-results-wrong-david-shor|access-date=2021-03-04|website=Vox}} On May 28, 2020, Shor tweeted a summary of an academic study by Omar Wasow, a black political scientist at Princeton University, that argued riots following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination likely tipped the 1968 presidential election in Richard Nixon's favor.{{Cite web |last=Mounk |first=Yascha |date=2020-06-27 |title=Stop Firing the Innocent |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/ |access-date=2022-03-14 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}} Some critics argued that Shor's tweet, which was posted during the height of the George Floyd protests, could be interpreted as criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement.{{cite web | last=Yglesias | first=Matthew | title=The real stakes in the David Shor saga | website=Vox | date=July 29, 2020 | url=https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech | access-date=November 8, 2021}} Jonathan Chait wrote in New York Magazine that "At least some employees and clients on Civis Analytics complained that Shor's tweet threatened their safety."{{Cite web |last=Chait |first=Jonathan |date=2020-06-11 |title=The Still-Vital Case for Liberalism in a Radical Age |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/case-for-liberalism-tom-cotton-new-york-times-james-bennet.html |access-date=2022-03-13 |website=Intelligencer |language=en-us}} Shor apologized for the tweet on May 29, and he was fired from Civis Analytics a few days later.

Shor's firing has been cited as an example of "the excesses of so-called cancel culture."{{cite news |last1=Levitz |first1=Eric |title=David Shor's Unified Theory of American Politics |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231212013540/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html |url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html |archive-date=2023-12-12 |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=New York |date=2020-07-17}}{{cite news |last1=Robertson |first1=Derek |title=How Everything Became ‘Cancel Culture' |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209104548/https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/06/05/cancel-culture-politics-analysis-491928 |url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/06/05/cancel-culture-politics-analysis-491928 |archive-date=2022-12-09 |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=Politico |date=2021-06-05}} Political scientist and journalist Yascha Mounk wrote that Shor had been "punished for doing something that most wouldn't even consider objectionable."{{cite news |last1=Mounk |first1=Yascha |title=Stop Firing the Innocent |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231208011954/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/ |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/ |archive-date=2023-12-08 |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=The Atlantic |date=2020-06-27}} Vox editor and columnist Matthew Yglesias condemned the idea "that it's categorically wrong for a person{{snd}}or at least a white person{{snd}}to criticize on tactical or other grounds anything being done in the name of racial justice," which he claimed was common among Shor's progressive critics.{{cite news |last1=Yglesias |first1=Matthew |title=The real stakes in the David Shor saga |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231029170747/https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech |url=https://www.vox.com/2020/7/29/21340308/david-shor-omar-wasow-speech |archive-date=2023-10-29 |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=The Atlantic |date=2020-07-29}}

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 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.{{Cite web|last=Brownstein|first=Ronald|date=2021-12-09|title=Democrats Are Losing the Culture Wars|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/12/democrats-lose-culture-war/620887/|access-date=2021-12-10|website=The Atlantic|language=en}} Some political analysts, including Michael Podhorzer, have criticized his work for a lack of transparency regarding his methods and data sources.{{cite news |last=Klein |first=Ezra |title=David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don't Want to Hear |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/opinion/democrats-david-shor-education-polarization.html |website=The New York Times |date=October 8, 2021 |access-date=October 12, 2021}}

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite web|last=Levitz|first=Eric|date=2020-07-17|title=David Shor's Unified Theory of American Politics|url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/david-shor-cancel-culture-2020-election-theory-polls.html|access-date=2021-03-03|website=Intelligencer}}

• {{Twitter}}
• [https://bsky.app/profile/davidshor.bsky.social David Shor] on Bluesky
• [https://blueroseresearch.org/about/ Website of Blue Rose Research]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ8UDzUvMg0 "Noah Smith interviews David Shor"], an hour-long interview with Bloomberg opinion writer Noah Smith
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0J7dIlL7c "Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won | The Ezra Klein Show"], an hour-and-a-half long interview with New York Times writer Ezra Klein

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shor, David}}

Category:1991 births

Category:American Orthodox Jews

Category:American people of Moroccan-Jewish descent

Category:American political consultants

Category:Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign

Category:American data scientists

Category:Florida Democrats

Category:Florida International University alumni

Category:Living people

Category:Scientists from Miami

Category:Scientists from Florida

Category:21st-century American Jews