The big winners on Election Night were Nates and Daves, again

published 3 November 2021

If you wanted to know what was happening as election results started trickling in on Tuesday — or on any election night in the past decade — you could have turned to cable news in the hopes of catching NBC's Steve Kornacki or CNN's John King and their granular touchscreen map boards. Or, more reliably, you could follow a handful of astute election savants. And, as The Atlantic's Nick Baumann playfully pointed out, there's a good chance they will be named Nate or Dave.

Baumann did not say which Nathans and Davids he turns to on election night, but there's a good chance they include The Washington Post's intrepid campaign gumshoe Dave Weigel, of "crucial Waukesha County" fame; FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver; Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman; and Nate Cohn, of the infamous New York Times election needle. But it turns out the Dave-Nate nomenclatural interconnection goes even deeper.

In any case, no matter who wins or loses on Election Night, the Nates and the Daves always triumph. Well, almost always. Or at least often.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.