University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab
Graded against the actual result across 16 races (from 21 polls, through 2022).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 16 races University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab | 4.89 | 56% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 2.49 | 69% |
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 (16)
Each race University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab 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 FL Governor | R+14.0 | R+19.4 | 5.4 | ✓ |
| 2022 FL-4 House | R+12.0 | R+20.9 | 8.9 | ✓ |
| 2022 FL Senate | R+11.0 | R+16.4 | 5.4 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL-4 House | R+19.0 | R+22.2 | 3.2 | ✓ |
| 2020 FL President | D+1.0 | R+3.4 | 4.4 | ✗ |
| 2018 FL Governor | D+6.0 | R+0.4 | 6.4 | ✗ |
| 2018 FL-16 House | R+9.0 | R+9.1 | 0.1 | ✓ |
| 2018 FL Senate | D+1.0 | R+0.1 | 1.1 | ✗ |
| 2016 FL-13 House | D+18.0 | D+3.8 | 14.2 | ✓ |
| 2016 FL President | D+4.0 | R+1.2 | 5.2 | ✗ |
| 2016 FL Senate | R+6.0 | R+7.7 | 1.7 | ✓ |
| 2014 FL Governor | D+5.0 | R+1.1 | 6.1 | ✗ |
| 2012 FL President | D+4.0 | D+0.9 | 3.1 | ✓ |
| 2012 FL Senate | D+10.0 | D+13.0 | 3.0 | ✓ |
| 2004 FL President | D+1.0 | R+5.0 | 6.0 | ✗ |
| 2004 FL Senate | D+3.0 | R+1.1 | 4.1 | ✗ |
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 | 8 | 4.81 | -0.26 | 50% |
| 3–6 wk | 11 | 4.91 | -0.83 | 55% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 5 | 5.2 | D+5.2 |
| 2018 | 5 | 2.4 | D+2.4 |
| 2020 | 3 | 5.6 | D+5.6 |
| 2022 | 3 | 6.6 | D+6.6 |
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.