New England College Polling Center
Graded against the actual result across 9 races (from 40 polls, through 2014).
Every race (9)
Each race New England College Polling Center 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 NH Governor | D+7.0 | D+4.9 | 2.1 | ✓ |
| 2014 NH-1 House | R+9.0 | R+3.6 | 5.4 | ✓ |
| 2014 NH-2 House | D+11.0 | D+10.0 | 1.0 | ✓ |
| 2014 NH Senate | R+0.5 | D+3.2 | 3.7 | ✗ |
| 2013 MA Senate | D+12.0 | D+10.2 | 1.8 | ✓ |
| 2012 NH Governor | D+2.0 | D+12.1 | 10.1 | ✓ |
| 2012 NH-1 House | R+7.0 | D+3.8 | 10.8 | ✗ |
| 2012 NH-2 House | D+6.0 | D+4.8 | 1.2 | ✓ |
| 2012 NH President | D+4.0 | D+5.6 | 1.6 | ✓ |
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 | 6 | 3.98 | -0.30 | 83% |
| 1–3 wk | 13 | 4.28 | -0.79 | 62% |
| 3–6 wk | 13 | 3.03 | -2.71 | 85% |
| 6–9 wk | 8 | 5.51 | -0.64 | 75% |
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 | 7 | 5.5 | R+5.2 |
| 2014 | 32 | 3.8 | D+0.5 |
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.