Hillary Clinton likely to win Iowa caucuses: Polling expert

FiveThirtyEight, the polling outfit started by sports statisticianNate Silver, is known for oftenaccurate election forecasts. And, this year, the site predicts that former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will win the Iowa Democratic caucuses.

Silver himself admits that his forecast isn’t a bet-your-life proposition, though.

“Forecasting primaries and caucuses is challenging, much more so than general elections,” Silver said in a statement about the prediction. “Polls shift rapidly and often prove to be fairly inaccurate, even on the eve of an election…Nonetheless, we’ve developed a pair of relatively simple statistical models that we hope can shed some light on the upcoming primaries.”

Those models include an amalgamation of various polls. And, right now, using those polls and a number of other factors, Silver sees Clinton with a 73 percent chance of besting fellow Democrat Sen. Bernie Sandersat the first-in-the-nation contest. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley seems to have next to no shot at beating either Sanders or Clinton.

FiveThirtyEight explained that the forecast is calculated based on weighted polling averages.

Then again, despite being known for his methodical and often accurate prognostications,Silver added thathe could be “totally wrong.”

The Iowa caucuses take place this year on Feb. 1.