Western New England University Polling Institute
Graded against the actual result across 11 races (from 20 polls, through 2022).
Head-to-head vs VotePredictor Elections
The fair, apples-to-apples test: on the 11 races Western New England University Polling Institute actually polled, how its final poll's margin compared to what VotePredictor Elections predicted for those same races.
| Model | Avg miss (pts) | Called right |
|---|---|---|
| Western New England University Polling Institute | 3.28 | 100% |
| VotePredictor Elections | 2.94 | 100% |
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 Western New England University Polling Institute 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 CT Governor | D+15.0 | D+11.4 | 3.6 | ✓ |
| 2022 CT Senate | D+13.0 | D+13.1 | 0.1 | ✓ |
| 2018 MA Governor | R+38.0 | R+33.5 | 4.5 | ✓ |
| 2018 MA Senate | D+30.0 | D+24.2 | 5.8 | ✓ |
| 2016 MA President | D+30.0 | D+27.2 | 2.8 | ✓ |
| 2014 MA Governor | R+5.0 | R+1.9 | 3.1 | ✓ |
| 2014 MA Senate | D+20.0 | D+23.9 | 3.9 | ✓ |
| 2013 MA Senate | D+8.0 | D+10.2 | 2.2 | ✓ |
| 2012 MA President | D+18.0 | D+23.0 | 5.0 | ✓ |
| 2012 MA Senate | D+4.0 | D+7.5 | 3.5 | ✓ |
| 2010 MA Governor | D+5.0 | D+6.4 | 1.4 | ✓ |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 wk | 10 | 3.39 | -1.68 | 100% |
| 3–6 wk | 6 | 2.91 | -2.83 | 100% |
| 6–9 wk | 4 | 1.57 | -4.58 | 100% |
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) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 3 | 1.1 | R+0.1 |
| 2012 | 6 | 3.4 | R+1.1 |
| 2014 | 4 | 2.4 | R+2.0 |
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.