St. Pete Polls
Graded against the actual result across 26 races (from 50 polls, through 2025).
Head-to-head vs the VotePredictor model
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 26 races St. Pete Polls actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what the VotePredictor model predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| St. Pete Polls | 6.85 | 69% |
| VotePredictor | 5.97 | 85% |
VotePredictor 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 (26)
Each race St. Pete Polls 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 FL House | R+4.1 | R+14.0 | 9.9 | ✓ |
| 2024 FL-13 House | EVEN | R+9.6 | 9.6 | ✗ |
| 2024 FL President | R+5.7 | R+13.1 | 7.4 | ✓ |
| 2024 FL Senate | R+3.2 | R+12.8 | 9.6 | ✓ |
| 2022 FL-13 House | R+0.6 | R+8.1 | 7.5 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL-13 House | D+16.2 | D+6.1 | 10.1 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL-15 House | R+8.0 | R+10.8 | 2.8 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL-18 House | R+8.0 | R+14.8 | 6.8 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL-21 House | D+28.0 | D+19.9 | 8.1 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL President | D+1.1 | R+3.4 | 4.5 | ✗ |
| 2018 FL Governor | D+4.1 | R+0.4 | 4.5 | ✗ |
| 2018 FL-15 House | R+1.9 | R+6.0 | 4.1 | ✓ |
| 2018 FL-16 House | R+7.1 | R+9.1 | 2.0 | ✓ |
| 2018 FL-6 House | R+5.0 | R+12.6 | 7.6 | ✓ |
| 2018 FL Senate | D+3.7 | R+0.1 | 3.8 | ✗ |
| 2016 FL-13 House | D+5.0 | D+3.8 | 1.2 | ✓ |
| 2014 FL Governor | D+1.4 | R+1.1 | 2.5 | ✗ |
| 2014 FL-13 House | EVEN | R+1.9 | 1.9 | ✗ |
| 2012 FL-10 House | R+7.7 | R+3.5 | 4.2 | ✓ |
| 2012 FL-13 House | R+9.0 | R+15.1 | 6.1 | ✓ |
| 2012 FL-16 House | R+17.0 | R+7.2 | 9.8 | ✓ |
| 2012 FL-18 House | R+9.1 | D+0.6 | 9.7 | ✗ |
| 2012 FL-2 House | R+0.7 | R+5.5 | 4.8 | ✓ |
| 2012 FL-22 House | D+3.2 | D+9.3 | 6.1 | ✓ |
| 2012 FL-26 House | R+2.5 | D+10.6 | 13.1 | ✗ |
| 2012 FL-9 House | D+4.5 | D+25.0 | 20.5 | ✓ |
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 | 4.03 | -0.25 | 50% |
| 1–3 wk | 14 | 4.37 | -0.70 | 57% |
| 3–6 wk | 24 | 7.33 | +1.59 | 54% |
| 6–9 wk | 4 | 6.78 | +0.63 | 50% |
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 | 14 | 10.5 | R+8.0 |
| 2014 | 3 | 1.5 | D+1.5 |
| 2016 | 5 | 2.2 | R+1.2 |
| 2018 | 14 | 2.5 | D+2.1 |
| 2020 | 9 | 6.1 | D+6.1 |
| 2024 | 3 | 8.9 | D+8.9 |
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.