He was on the top of the world after the 2012 election, with everyone desperate to hear from the race’s second biggest winner on how he got it so right. He could have tempered their excitement, explaining the limits of his own role in his own forecasts, how he never technically made any calls, how much he relied on the collective polling industry getting it right. Instead, he played right into their mythical conception of him, taking full credit for “calls” as noncommittal as the 50.2% chance he gave for Obama to win Florida. There would never be a pained explanation as to why he didn’t technically get the election right, like how he explained after 2016 and 2022 that he didn’t get the election wrong. He was going all in, betting that he could fully sustain his new image as a clairvoyant mastermind.