Pollsters Who Got it Right

HP: First, on the analyst tip, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com was the big winner. His final projection for Barack Obama's electoral haul, at 349, stood accurate as of Wednesday morning (though North Carolina could yet add to Obama's total). On the popular vote split, Silver was also right on with his prediction of a 52.3-46.3 advantage for Obama.

As for polling firms, the respected Pew firm was right there with Silver, showing a 52-46 national vote breakdown in its final survey. (Though it's important to note that pollsters, unlike analysts, see their principal role as trying to reflect the electorate ahead of election day, as opposed to making predictions.) Rasmussen can also take a bow for getting the national numbers right.

Overall, pollster Anna Greenberg said she was impressed by the extent to which many polling firms were on the money. "I almost wish it wasn't the case, because it would have been more fun," she said. Given the controversies over "likely voter" predictions, how to weight for an expected large African American turnout, and whether cell-phone only users were under-sampled in surveys, however, Greenberg said "pollsters seem to have accurately captured the electorate."

Brent McGoldrick, a pollster who worked on the Hotline/Diageo tracking poll, agreed. "What you're really talking about with questions of the Bradley effect, or cell phones or likely voters, is the composition of electorate. And most polls just got it right. If you looked at the internals of age groups or Hispanics, you see we're even closer to rights. And that's the fundamental question." who else?