The main assumption underlying Nate Silver’s Obama bet this year is that the state polls will be correct. Maybe they will be, even though three states were wrong in 2010, two states were wrong in 2008, one state was wrong in 2004 (WI), and a very important state in 2000 was incorrectly called by most pollsters.

Nate Silver’s model could very well forecast every state correctly next week, assuming the polls accurately reflect the true voting population. But if they’re wrong, it’ll be Nate Silver whose value is at risk