Christopher Newport University
Graded against the actual result across 19 races (from 35 polls, through 2025).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 19 races Christopher Newport University actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| Christopher Newport University | 4.14 | 84% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 4.52 | 90% |
VotePredictor Elections aggregates all the pollsters, so it's expected to beat any single one on margin — that's the value of averaging. The honest comparison among forecasters is on the combined board.
Every race (19)
Each race Christopher Newport University polled, scored on its final poll — the call right before the vote — against the actual Dem−Rep result. Click a race for its full detail.
| Race | Their call | Result | Miss | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 VA Governor | D+7.0 | D+15.4 | 8.4 | ✓ |
| 2024 VA-2 House | R+1.0 | R+3.8 | 2.8 | ✓ |
| 2022 VA-2 House | EVEN | R+3.4 | 3.4 | ✗ |
| 2021 VA Governor | D+1.0 | R+1.9 | 2.9 | ✗ |
| 2020 VA-2 House | D+7.0 | D+5.7 | 1.3 | ✓ |
| 2020 VA President | D+12.0 | D+10.1 | 1.9 | ✓ |
| 2020 VA Senate | D+20.0 | D+12.1 | 7.9 | ✓ |
| 2018 VA-10 House | D+11.0 | D+12.4 | 1.4 | ✓ |
| 2018 VA-2 House | R+6.0 | D+2.2 | 8.2 | ✗ |
| 2018 VA-7 House | D+3.0 | D+1.9 | 1.1 | ✓ |
| 2017 VA Governor | D+6.0 | D+8.9 | 2.9 | ✓ |
| 2016 VA President | D+6.0 | D+5.3 | 0.7 | ✓ |
| 2014 VA Senate | D+7.0 | D+0.8 | 6.2 | ✓ |
| 2013 VA Governor | D+7.0 | D+2.5 | 4.5 | ✓ |
| 2012 VA-2 House | R+12.0 | R+7.7 | 4.3 | ✓ |
| 2010 VA-2 House | R+1.0 | R+10.7 | 9.7 | ✓ |
| 2009 VA Governor | R+13.8 | R+17.4 | 3.6 | ✓ |
| 2008 VA President | D+6.0 | D+6.3 | 0.3 | ✓ |
| 2008 VA Senate | D+24.0 | D+31.3 | 7.3 | ✓ |
Accuracy by time to election
Lower is better. Time to election runs right (election week) to left (~2 months out).
By the numbers
| Time to election | Polls | Avg miss | vs field | Called right |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 wk | 10 | 4.61 | -0.45 | 90% |
| 3–6 wk | 16 | 4.61 | -1.09 | 81% |
| 6–9 wk | 7 | 7.63 | +1.49 | 86% |
vs field is this pollster's average miss minus all pollsters' at the same lead time — green beats the field, redtrails it. Our historical polls reach ~2 months out; earlier polling isn't in the record.
Track record by cycle — getting better?
| Year | Polls | Avg miss | Lean (house effect) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 3 | 7.6 | R+7.6 |
| 2014 | 3 | 12.9 | D+12.9 |
| 2016 | 6 | 3.5 | D+3.5 |
| 2017 | 5 | 2.9 | R+2.9 |
| 2018 | 3 | 3.6 | R+2.9 |
| 2020 | 5 | 3.4 | D+1.4 |
Do we credit a pollster for fixing its bias? Each cycle, the model re-estimates every pollster's lean from all its earlier polls (walk-forward) and subtracts it before using the poll. We tested weighting recent cycles more — it doesn't help: a pollster's lean in one cycle barely predicts the next (correlation 0.28), so the swings above are mostly noise, and averaging over more history beats chasing the latest cycle. The all-time estimate we use came out within ~0.5% of the best option.