Popular Writing
Recent Publications:
The Events that Defined Trump’s First 100 Days of His Second Term Media Bias Detector on May 9, 2025
Understanding the Impact of Tariffs on Consumers and Businesses Media Bias Detector on February 6, 2025
Media Coverage (or lack thereof) of Trump’s First Week in Office Part 1: Trump’s Inauguration Media Bias Detector on January 30, 2025
New York Times: Biden’s age is 10.9x more important than Trump’s Project 2025 Media Bias Detector on December 19, 2024
2024 Election Recap: What the Media Told Us Media Bias Detector on December 6, 2024
How the Media Bias Detector Shows Differences in Public Discourse Between the Biden vs Trump and the Harris vs Trump Debates Media Bias Detector on September 25, 2024
Interview: Are We Misinformed About Misinformation?
October 24, 2024 on Undark
What the Media Bias Detector is telling us going into the upcoming Trump v. Harris debate (and what it will tell us coming out of it) Media Bias Detector on September 10, 2024
How choice can skew the public’s understanding of what is real and what is fake
Podcast July 15, 2024 on It’s All Journalism
Misconceptions on misinformation
Podcast July 6, 2024 on Behind the Markets on Wharton Business Radio
David’s Personal Highlights of the Media Bias Detector! Media Bias Detector on June 24, 2024
Joe Biden’s (but not Donald Trump’s) age: A case study in the New York Times’ inconsistent narrative selection and framing Media Bias Detector on June 12, 2024
2017-2023 was mainly lost to Twitter, 2024 Threads, and now in 2025+ BlueSky but here is a partial list of the before time.
(older) Articles about Me (Click Here For: Articles by Me)
When you hear the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent. Think 7 instead.
October 5, 2016 on New York Times (by David)
We Gave Four Good Pollsters the Same Raw Data. They Had Four Different Results.
September 20, 2016 on New York Times
Why the Whole Trump-Clinton Election Could Probably Just Be Held in Pennsylvania
September 16, 2016 on New York Times (extensive Q&A with me)
Ranking the 2016 Presidential Primary Polls and Predictions
June 29, 2016 on Bloomberg
Who’s Going to Win the Presidential Election?
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 on Columbia Magazine
There’s A High Chance Of A Contested Republican Convention
Wednesday, March 30, 2016 on Huffington Post
You can bet real money on the US Election. It’s for research
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 on Wired
How Microsoft Helped ESPN With Its Top 100 All-Time NBA Rankings Podcast
February 22, 2016 on Tech Times
From data collection to data analytics to data consumption Video
August 24, 2015 on Microsoft Research
5 Q’s for David Rothschild, Economist at Microsoft Research
July 20, 2015 on Center for Data Innovation
Microsoft came remarkably close to predicting all 24 Oscar winners
February 23, 2015 on Engadget
Voters Expect Republican Wins, in Kansas and Elsewhere
Monday, October 27, 2014 on New York Times
Microsoft Begins a Push Into the Polling World
Monday, September 29, 2014 on New York Times
How Microsoft Perfectly Predicted the World Cup’s Final Stage
Monday, July 14, 2014 on Foreign Policy
• Microsoft’s version of ‘Nate Silver’ dishes out data-backed predictions for 2014
December 26, 2013 on Geek Wire
Microsoft Research Grabs More Room for Data Science in Silicon Alley
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 on Xconomy
Microsoft Predicts Eurovision (Yup, you heard that right). The Winner Will Be Denmark
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 on Bloomberg
The Magic Prophet: Let’s Meet the Prophetic Microsoft Researcher!
Friday, April 5, 2013 on Global Entrepreneur
Predicting Oscar Winners
Podcast on Friday, February 22, 2013 on NPR’s On the Media
The science of predicting Oscar winners
Video on Thursday, February 21, 2013 on Reuters TV
Big Data Versus Little Data: Predicting the Academy Awards
Podcast on Thursday, February 21, 2013 on IEEE Spectrum
And the Oscar Goes to …
Wednesday, February 13, 2013 on MSR
Obama Expected to Win Ohio, Say YouGov/Xbox Poll Respondents
Friday, November 2, 2012 on Time
A Better Poll Question: Who Do You Think Will Win?
Thursday, November 1, 2012 on New York Times
Forget the polls, Obama is still winning: PredictWise - The Trail
Video on Friday, October 19, 2012 on Reuters TV
Why the President Is Still a Heavy Favorite on the Prediction Markets
Friday, October 12, 2012 on PBS NewsHour
Political Polls, Professors and Election Markets Predict the Presidential Race
Video on Friday, October 12, 2012 on PBS NewsHour
Microsoft Researcher Predicts Obama to Win
Podcast on Wednesday, October 3, 2012 on IEEE Spectrum
’12 Campaign: Predicting the U.S. Election
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 on MSR
(older) Articles By Me (Click Here For: Articles About Me)
What Americans Mean When They Talk About “Populism”. Buzzfeed February 17, 2017
This Poll Shows A Lot Of Republicans Like Ivanka — And So Do 22% Of Democrats. Buzzfeed February 16, 2017
Trump and the GOP Have Massively Unpopular Tax Policies. Slate November 30, 2016
New poll: 30% of Trump supporters say they’ll protest the election if he loses. Washington Post November 8, 2016
Chasing Electoral Ghosts: We looked at 130 million ballots from the 2012 election and
found practically zero evidence of fraud.. Slate November 7, 2016
Hillary Clinton would win in Australia, New Zealand, England, Canada, France, Mexico and Germany. But not Russia.. Washington Post November 7, 2016
‘It Really Does Get Into Your Head.’ The Election Through the Eyes of Teenage Girls. New York Times November 4, 2016 (written by Claire Cain Miller)
Preparing for Future: Smartphone Only Polling. Huffington Post October 30, 2016
Poll: 60% of Republicans believe illegal immigrants vote; 43% believe people vote using dead people’s names. Washington Post October 24, 2016
Will Republican voters flee Trump, post-video? Here’s what we found.. Washington Post October 14, 2016
When you hear the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent. Think 7instead. New York Times October 5, 2016
All polls are non-probability to varying degrees. Huffington Post September 7, 2016
Innovative, Interesting New Poll Has Some Problems. Huffington Post August 22, 2016
There’s No Evidence Of The ‘Bradley Effect’ In Trump Polls. Huffington Post August 17, 2016
Why you shouldn’t be fooled by polling bounces. Slate August 5, 2016
Quick Take: solid convention bounce for Clinton. Huffington Post July 30, 2016
Who cares about free trade? Not many Americans, it turns out.. Washington Post July 29, 2016
Something’s Odd About the Political Betting Markets. Slate July 11, 2016
Guns And Immigration: Critical Wedge Issues Of 2016. Huffington Post July 9, 2016
Brexit: leave voters relatively unfazed by currency collapse. Huffington Post July 1, 2016
Before you get surgery, check this evidence: Less-invasive treatments work better. Washington Post, June 30, 2016
Four keys for predicting whether Britain will leave the European Union. Washington Post, June 22, 2016
Financial expectations of Brexit for UK voters. Huffington Post, June 22, 2016
There is no “Trump Bump” in the polls — just a growing lead for the Democrats. Washington Post, June 7, 2016
New polls show that more Americans prefer Democrats’ policies. Washington Post, May 27, 2016
Be Careful What You Wish For: Trump Has A 30 Percent Chance To Win Presidency. Huffington Post, May 4, 2016
Will it be Clinton or Trump in November? Here’s what’s wrong with most predictions. Washington Post, May 3, 2016
Trump Goes from Lead to Command of GOP Nomination. Huffington Post, April 27, 2016
We did the math. Cruz was smart to campaign in a Bronx district with almost no Republican voters. Washington Post, April 19, 2016.
Donald Trump Is Still The Most Likely Republican Candidate. Huffington Post, April 17, 2016
Democratic Nominee (Whomever That Is) Still Strong. Huffington Post, April 6, 2016
The prediction markets were right about Tuesday’s primaries. So what do they say about November?. Washington Post, March 17, 2016
Trump is closer to what most Republicans believe than the ‘establishment’ candidates are. Washington Post, March 6, 2016