Clarity Campaign Labs
Graded against the actual result across 27 races (from 31 polls, through 2025).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 27 races Clarity Campaign Labs actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity Campaign Labs | 5.84 | 52% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 3.88 | 82% |
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 (27)
Each race Clarity Campaign Labs 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+10.0 | D+15.4 | 5.4 | ✓ |
| 2024 US House | D+3.0 | R+2.8 | 5.8 | ✗ |
| 2024 US President | D+4.0 | R+1.5 | 5.5 | ✗ |
| 2022 FL Governor | R+1.0 | R+19.4 | 18.4 | ✓ |
| 2022 FL Senate | EVEN | R+16.4 | 16.4 | ✗ |
| 2022 WI Senate | D+2.0 | R+1.0 | 3.0 | ✗ |
| 2018 CA-4 House | R+4.0 | R+8.3 | 4.3 | ✓ |
| 2018 OH-12 House | R+2.0 | R+4.2 | 2.2 | ✓ |
| 2016 CA-10 House | D+1.0 | R+3.4 | 4.4 | ✗ |
| 2016 IL-10 House | D+10.0 | D+5.2 | 4.8 | ✓ |
| 2016 ME-2 House | D+4.0 | R+9.6 | 13.6 | ✗ |
| 2016 MN-3 House | R+3.0 | R+13.7 | 10.7 | ✓ |
| 2016 MN-8 House | D+8.0 | D+0.6 | 7.4 | ✓ |
| 2016 M2 President | EVEN | R+10.3 | 10.3 | ✗ |
| 2016 MO President | R+16.0 | R+18.6 | 2.6 | ✓ |
| 2016 NV President | EVEN | D+2.4 | 2.4 | ✗ |
| 2016 PA President | D+4.0 | R+0.7 | 4.7 | ✗ |
| 2016 WI President | D+4.0 | R+0.8 | 4.8 | ✗ |
| 2016 MO Senate | R+2.0 | R+2.8 | 0.8 | ✓ |
| 2016 NV Senate | D+3.0 | D+2.4 | 0.6 | ✓ |
| 2016 PA Senate | D+3.0 | R+1.4 | 4.4 | ✗ |
| 2016 WI Senate | D+3.0 | R+3.4 | 6.4 | ✗ |
| 2014 MI Governor | EVEN | R+4.1 | 4.1 | ✗ |
| 2014 OK Governor | R+2.0 | R+14.8 | 12.8 | ✓ |
| 2014 MI Senate | D+15.0 | D+13.3 | 1.7 | ✓ |
| 2012 IN Governor | R+3.0 | R+2.9 | 0.1 | ✓ |
| 2012 IN Senate | D+7.0 | D+5.8 | 1.2 | ✓ |
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 | 12 | 3.69 | -1.38 | 50% |
| 3–6 wk | 14 | 5.56 | -0.18 | 64% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 6 | 4.7 | D+4.6 |
| 2016 | 14 | 5.6 | D+5.2 |
| 2022 | 4 | 10.0 | D+10.0 |
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.