He spent election night in a small studio inside the Newseum in Washington, as an on-air analyst for Dan Rather Reports on HDNet. During the campaign, Silver had learned a thing or two about TV polish: he smoothed his hair, ironed his jacket, applied Visine drops and dabbed on concealer before a “hit,” as he had learned to call it. This was his second television booking of the day, and a producer from The Tonight Show had called earlier. A makeup artist brushed on powder and a producer yelled into a cellphone as Silver sat sideways at his computer, squinting at Excel spreadsheets.

Silver has believed in numbers the way authors believe in words, as capable of expression and provocation, since he was young. He “was a numbers fanatic,” said his father, Brian Silver, a political science professor at Michigan State University.