Mr. Silver gained national attention in 2008 for his analysis of polling data during election season. In a Times profile that year, Mr. Silver's father recounted a time when his son, "a numbers machine," spent an entire day of preschool counting into the thousands.

Content from Mr. Silver's blog FiveThirtyEight will be folded into The Times politics coverage online, and he will also contribute to The Times Magazine.

Mr. Silver also ran the numbers behind New York's "Most Livable Neighborhoods" guide in April.

Here's the release:

NEW YORK, Jun 03, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --This summerThe New York Times will incorporate the political blog FiveThirtyEight into the political news section of NYTimes.com. Blogger, polling expert and founder of FiveThirtyEight Nate Silver will continue to oversee the blog and will also be a regular contributor to The New York Times and to The New York Times Sunday Magazine.

"Nate won considerable recognition during the 2008 presidential campaign for his timely and prescient reports on the electoral races and on public opinion," said Bill Keller, executive editor, The New York Times. "We look forward to his unique perspectives on statistics, covering a wide swath of issues relating to politics, culture and sports."

Mr. Silver will also work with many of the award-winning interactive journalists and software developers who present political data on NYTimes.com and who innovate new and imaginative ways of communicating with The Times's audience.

FiveThirtyEight will continue to exist as a separate blog under Mr. Silver's direction, but under the banner and the auspices of NYTimes.com. Its contents will be featured daily on NYTimes.com/politics.