New York Times poll expert says he 'fudged' election night numbers

New York Times polling guru Nate Cohn said the Paper of Record "fudged" numbers on election night so Donald Trump's shocking upset wouldn't contradict projections.

TheUpshot election forecasting model started off giving Hillary Clinton an 85 percent chance to win the election, a forecast based on polling data. By the end of Election Night, the same model gave Donald Trump a 95 percent chance of winning.

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"That was fudged, by the way, a little inside knowledge. We did not allow it to go higher than 95 [percent] for fear of contradicting projections," Cohn said on the Times' "The Run-Up" podcast.

Podcast host Michael Barbaro simply said, "sure, that's fascinating," without asking a follow-up question about the paper fudging data. Trump, who will take over the White House on Jan. 20, likes to call the media "dishonest" and "unfair," and this revelation probably won't do much to change his opinion.

Politico once called Cohn "a precocious numbers-cruncher and polling whiz who has emerged as the new face of election analysis for the paper of record." So why in the world was he "fudging" numbers on the night of a presidential election?

TheWrap asked the Times for an explanation and to speak with Cohn, and they replied with the following: "Our live election night chances were displayed as >95%. Note the greater than sign. We know there are errors in live election results and that models are imperfect: they have to make guesses about things like the number of votes left to be counted. The cap reflected this uncertainty. We did this for both candidates, in advance."

This response does not explain why the numbers were "fudged," and we have asked the paper to elaborate further. Stay tuned.