At the Business Insider Ignite media summit in New York, New York Times editor Jill Abramson said that she “would love” to keep FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver in the company through at least the next election.

“He got huge, huge readership. Half the people coming [to NYTimes.com] searched for Nate, they weren’t coming for the rest of the Times, they came for him,” Abramson said. “You hope they will be tantalized by other things on the buffet table.”

Abramson says that the Times could help Silver expand beyond the data-based political reporting for which he has become a household name:

“We would love to have Nate continue to be part of the New York Times family, and to expand on what he does,” she said. “We know he began in sports anyway, so it is not an exclusively political product. I am excited to talk to Nate when he finishes his book tour about ways to expand that kind of reporting.”

“He has his on tower now,” Abramson quipped, when asked if Silver is going to get his own floor in the Times building.

More from Abramson later this afternoon.