SoonerPoll.com
Graded against the actual result across 23 races (from 54 polls, through 2022).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 23 races SoonerPoll.com actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| SoonerPoll.com | 8.86 | 87% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 5.62 | 96% |
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 (23)
Each race SoonerPoll.com 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 OK Governor | D+3.3 | R+13.7 | 17.0 | ✗ |
| 2022 OK Senate | R+11.3 | R+32.2 | 20.9 | ✓ |
| 2020 OK-1 House | R+29.0 | R+31.0 | 2.0 | ✓ |
| 2020 OK-5 House | D+1.8 | R+4.1 | 5.9 | ✗ |
| 2020 OK President | R+22.0 | R+33.1 | 11.1 | ✓ |
| 2020 OK Senate | R+19.5 | R+30.2 | 10.7 | ✓ |
| 2018 OK Governor | R+2.9 | R+12.1 | 9.2 | ✓ |
| 2018 OK-1 House | R+22.1 | R+18.6 | 3.5 | ✓ |
| 2018 OK-2 House | R+13.8 | R+34.9 | 21.1 | ✓ |
| 2018 OK-3 House | R+29.9 | R+47.7 | 17.8 | ✓ |
| 2018 OK-4 House | R+33.3 | R+30.1 | 3.2 | ✓ |
| 2018 OK-5 House | R+11.5 | D+1.4 | 12.9 | ✗ |
| 2016 OK President | R+30.0 | R+36.4 | 6.4 | ✓ |
| 2014 OK Governor | R+8.4 | R+14.8 | 6.4 | ✓ |
| 2014 OK Senate | R+34.9 | R+39.5 | 4.6 | ✓ |
| 2012 OK-2 House | R+12.0 | R+19.0 | 7.0 | ✓ |
| 2012 OK President | R+25.9 | R+33.5 | 7.6 | ✓ |
| 2010 OK Governor | R+18.0 | R+20.9 | 2.9 | ✓ |
| 2010 OK Senate | R+40.0 | R+44.5 | 4.5 | ✓ |
| 2008 OK President | R+27.0 | R+31.3 | 4.3 | ✓ |
| 2008 OK Senate | R+10.0 | R+17.5 | 7.5 | ✓ |
| 2006 OK Governor | D+43.0 | D+33.0 | 10.0 | ✓ |
| 2004 OK Senate | R+1.2 | R+11.5 | 10.3 | ✓ |
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 | 21 | 7.66 | +2.59 | 81% |
| 3–6 wk | 17 | 8.82 | +3.08 | 82% |
| 6–9 wk | 15 | 10.65 | +4.50 | 87% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 6 | 14.4 | D+14.4 |
| 2008 | 16 | 5.8 | R+2.6 |
| 2010 | 3 | 4.1 | D+4.1 |
| 2014 | 4 | 4.8 | D+4.8 |
| 2018 | 9 | 10.7 | D+3.8 |
| 2020 | 7 | 6.8 | D+6.8 |
| 2022 | 4 | 18.3 | D+18.3 |
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.