Minneapolis Star Tribune
Graded against the actual result across 9 races (from 28 polls, through 2006).
Every race (9)
Each race Minneapolis Star Tribune 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 MN Governor | D+3.0 | R+1.0 | 4.0 | ✗ |
| 2006 MN-6 House | D+8.0 | R+8.0 | 16.0 | ✗ |
| 2006 MN Senate | D+21.0 | D+20.1 | 0.9 | ✓ |
| 2004 MN President | D+4.0 | D+3.5 | 0.5 | ✓ |
| 2002 MN Governor | R+3.0 | R+7.9 | 4.9 | ✓ |
| 2002 MN Senate | D+5.0 | R+2.2 | 7.2 | ✗ |
| 2000 MN President | D+10.0 | D+2.4 | 7.6 | ✓ |
| 2000 MN Senate | D+9.0 | D+5.5 | 3.5 | ✓ |
| 1998 MN Governor | D+5.0 | R+6.2 | 11.2 | ✗ |
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 wk | 11 | 4.58 | +0.30 | 64% |
| 3–6 wk | 9 | 6.69 | +0.95 | 56% |
| 6–9 wk | 5 | 9.30 | +3.15 | 40% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 3 | 14.9 | D+14.9 |
| 2000 | 6 | 5.8 | D+4.0 |
| 2002 | 6 | 7.3 | D+7.3 |
| 2004 | 4 | 3.0 | D+3.0 |
| 2006 | 9 | 4.7 | D+4.7 |
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.