Two things, I’m guessing. First, there’s the fact that in baseball you get thousands of data points a year. In presidential politics, you get a data point every four years. If you broaden your scope to national and state legislative elections (which wasn’t Shor’s focus at the time), in some sense you get thousands per election cycle, but it’s more like hundreds because most races are foregone conclusions. (That said, that’s enough data to draw some robust conclusions, such as that moderate candidates are more electable. On the other hand, it’s not clear how well those conclusions would translate to high-profile races.)
Second, electoral politics is probably a way harder thing to model. There are many more variables at play, things shift rapidly from year to year, etc. Meanwhile, baseball is a game whose rules of play—allowable actions, etc. -- are simple enough to write down. Strategy shifts over the years, but not nearly as much as in politics. (I say that without having much knowledge of baseball, so I could be… um, off base… here.)
Two things, I’m guessing. First, there’s the fact that in baseball you get thousands of data points a year. In presidential politics, you get a data point every four years. If you broaden your scope to national and state legislative elections (which wasn’t Shor’s focus at the time), in some sense you get thousands per election cycle, but it’s more like hundreds because most races are foregone conclusions. (That said, that’s enough data to draw some robust conclusions, such as that moderate candidates are more electable. On the other hand, it’s not clear how well those conclusions would translate to high-profile races.)
Second, electoral politics is probably a way harder thing to model. There are many more variables at play, things shift rapidly from year to year, etc. Meanwhile, baseball is a game whose rules of play—allowable actions, etc. -- are simple enough to write down. Strategy shifts over the years, but not nearly as much as in politics. (I say that without having much knowledge of baseball, so I could be… um, off base… here.)