TIPP Insights
Graded against the actual result across 11 races (from 65 polls, through 2024).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 10 races TIPP Insights actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| TIPP Insights | 1.98 | 70% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 1.50 | 90% |
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 (11)
Each race TIPP Insights 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 GA President | D+0.1 | R+2.2 | 2.4 | ✗ |
| 2024 US President | R+0.2 | R+1.5 | 1.2 | ✓ |
| 2024 WI President | D+0.5 | R+0.8 | 1.3 | ✗ |
| 2024 WI Senate | D+2.0 | D+0.9 | 1.1 | ✓ |
| 2020 PA President | D+5.0 | D+1.2 | 3.8 | ✓ |
| 2020 US President | D+4.0 | D+4.4 | 0.4 | ✓ |
| 2016 US President | R+1.5 | D+2.2 | 3.7 | ✗ |
| 2012 US President | D+1.6 | D+3.9 | 2.3 | ✓ |
| 2008 US President | D+4.7 | D+7.4 | 2.7 | ✓ |
| 2004 US President | R+3.3 | R+2.4 | 0.9 | ✓ |
| 2000 US President | R+1.9 | D+0.5 | 2.4 | ✗ |
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 | 13 | 2.09 | -2.19 | 77% |
| 1–3 wk | 33 | 2.10 | -2.97 | 55% |
| 3–6 wk | 13 | 3.24 | -2.50 | 62% |
| 6–9 wk | 6 | 1.51 | -4.64 | 67% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 7 | 2.9 | R+2.8 |
| 2004 | 9 | 1.5 | D+0.2 |
| 2008 | 9 | 3.3 | R+3.3 |
| 2012 | 6 | 3.0 | R+3.0 |
| 2016 | 4 | 1.9 | R+1.8 |
| 2020 | 8 | 1.7 | D+1.2 |
| 2024 | 22 | 2.0 | D+1.9 |
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.