Clout Research
Graded against the actual result across 20 races (from 28 polls, through 2022).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 20 races Clout Research actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| Clout Research | 7.48 | 50% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 3.53 | 85% |
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 (20)
Each race Clout Research 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 OR Governor | R+5.4 | D+3.4 | 8.8 | ✗ |
| 2018 OR Governor | D+0.9 | D+6.4 | 5.5 | ✓ |
| 2016 OR Governor | D+11.1 | D+7.2 | 3.9 | ✓ |
| 2016 NY-3 House | EVEN | D+11.7 | 11.7 | ✗ |
| 2016 GA President | R+2.7 | R+5.1 | 2.4 | ✓ |
| 2014 MI Senate | D+2.6 | D+13.3 | 10.7 | ✓ |
| 2013 VA Governor | D+1.0 | D+2.5 | 1.5 | ✓ |
| 2012 KY-6 House | R+4.0 | R+3.9 | 0.1 | ✓ |
| 2012 NC-7 House | R+6.0 | D+0.2 | 6.2 | ✗ |
| 2012 PA-12 House | R+5.0 | R+3.5 | 1.5 | ✓ |
| 2012 MO President | R+14.0 | R+9.4 | 4.6 | ✓ |
| 2012 OH President | R+3.0 | D+3.0 | 6.0 | ✗ |
| 2012 VA President | R+2.1 | D+3.9 | 6.0 | ✗ |
| 2012 WI President | D+2.0 | D+6.8 | 4.8 | ✓ |
| 2012 MO Senate | R+4.2 | D+15.7 | 19.9 | ✗ |
| 2012 OH Senate | R+5.0 | D+6.0 | 11.0 | ✗ |
| 2012 PA Senate | D+1.2 | D+9.1 | 7.9 | ✓ |
| 2012 VA Senate | R+3.3 | D+5.9 | 9.2 | ✗ |
| 2012 WI Senate | R+2.0 | D+5.5 | 7.5 | ✗ |
| 2010 WA-6 House | R+4.1 | D+16.1 | 20.2 | ✗ |
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 | 13 | 6.70 | +1.63 | 46% |
| 3–6 wk | 11 | 8.82 | +3.08 | 36% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 18 | 8.2 | R+8.2 |
| 2016 | 4 | 5.8 | R+2.6 |
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.