Øptimus Analytics
Graded against the actual result across 9 races (from 25 polls, through 2020).
Every race (9)
Each race Øptimus Analytics 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 VA-7 House | D+10.2 | D+1.8 | 8.4 | ✓ |
| 2020 SC President | R+12.4 | R+11.7 | 0.7 | ✓ |
| 2020 SC Senate | R+9.8 | R+10.3 | 0.5 | ✓ |
| 2018 AZ-1 House | D+2.4 | D+7.7 | 5.3 | ✓ |
| 2018 OH-7 House | R+18.2 | R+17.5 | 0.8 | ✓ |
| 2017 VA Governor | R+3.0 | D+8.9 | 11.9 | ✗ |
| 2014 FL Governor | R+1.5 | R+1.1 | 0.4 | ✓ |
| 2014 MA-6 House | R+1.8 | D+13.8 | 15.6 | ✗ |
| 2014 IA Senate | R+2.9 | R+8.3 | 5.4 | ✓ |
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 | 8 | 4.18 | -0.10 | 88% |
| 1–3 wk | 6 | 7.12 | +2.05 | 83% |
| 3–6 wk | 7 | 6.15 | +0.41 | 29% |
| 6–9 wk | 4 | 4.68 | -1.47 | 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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 19 | 5.8 | D+1.0 |
| 2020 | 3 | 3.2 | D+2.7 |
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.