Patriot Polling
Graded against the actual result across 20 races (from 24 polls, through 2024).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 20 races Patriot Polling actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| Patriot Polling | 3.08 | 65% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 2.01 | 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 Patriot Polling 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 AZ President | R+3.5 | R+5.5 | 2.0 | ✓ |
| 2024 GA President | R+1.8 | R+2.2 | 0.4 | ✓ |
| 2024 MI President | D+0.7 | R+1.4 | 2.1 | ✗ |
| 2024 NC President | R+1.6 | R+3.2 | 1.6 | ✓ |
| 2024 NV President | R+0.1 | R+3.1 | 3.0 | ✓ |
| 2024 PA President | R+0.9 | R+1.7 | 0.8 | ✓ |
| 2024 US President | D+1.3 | R+1.5 | 2.8 | ✗ |
| 2024 WI President | D+0.3 | R+0.9 | 1.2 | ✗ |
| 2024 AZ Senate | D+2.2 | D+2.4 | 0.2 | ✓ |
| 2024 MI Senate | D+1.5 | D+0.3 | 1.2 | ✓ |
| 2024 NV Senate | D+3.1 | D+1.6 | 1.5 | ✓ |
| 2024 PA Senate | D+1.4 | R+0.2 | 1.6 | ✗ |
| 2024 WI Senate | D+1.9 | D+0.8 | 1.1 | ✓ |
| 2022 NY Governor | D+5.1 | D+6.4 | 1.3 | ✓ |
| 2022 PA Governor | D+6.5 | D+14.8 | 8.3 | ✓ |
| 2022 WI Governor | R+4.4 | D+3.4 | 7.8 | ✗ |
| 2022 PA-8 House | R+2.5 | D+2.4 | 4.9 | ✗ |
| 2022 AZ Senate | D+0.7 | D+4.9 | 4.2 | ✓ |
| 2022 PA Senate | R+3.3 | D+4.9 | 8.2 | ✗ |
| 2022 WI Senate | R+8.4 | R+1.0 | 7.4 | ✓ |
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 | 16 | 2.32 | -1.92 | 69% |
| 1–3 wk | 5 | 4.49 | -0.57 | 80% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 9 | 6.4 | R+6.4 |
| 2024 | 15 | 1.5 | D+1.5 |
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.