Everyone who calls elections, scored
Models, markets, forecasters and pollsters on one board, graded on resolved US races from 2016 to 2024 and ranked by skill adjusted for how hard each race was. Calling thirty safe seats correctly is not the same achievement as calling thirty toss-ups, and an unadjusted score cannot tell them apart.
| # | Model / market / forecaster / pollster | Races | Win Brier | 90% range (wider = less data) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | VotePredictor Elections+ensemblemodel + forecasters + pollsters | 828 | 0.078 | |
| 2 | VotePredictor Elections+model + forecaster consensus | 828 | 0.079 | |
| 3 | FiveThirtyEightinactive | 695 | 0.081 | |
| 4 | OnMessage Inc. | 30 | 0.072 | |
| 5 | The New York Times/Siena College | 146 | 0.082 | |
| 6 | JHK Forecasts | 402 | 0.085 | |
| 7 | VotePredictor Electionsour model | 828 | 0.087 | |
| 8 | Race to the WH | 284 | 0.085 | |
| 9 | Cook Political | 627 | 0.087 | |
| 10 | Sabato's Crystal Ball | 627 | 0.089 | |
| 11 | The Economist | 510 | 0.090 | |
| 12 | Inside Elections | 401 | 0.092 | |
| 13 | Fox News | 178 | 0.092 | |
| 14 | Polymarket | 45 | 0.086 | |
| 15 | Split Ticket | 203 | 0.094 | |
| 16 | DDHQ/Decision Desk | 542 | 0.096 | |
| 17 | Research Co. | 79 | 0.092 | |
| 18 | Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research | 41 | 0.089 | |
| 19 | Suffolk University | 66 | 0.092 | |
| 20 | Princeton Election Consortium | 132 | 0.097 | |
| 21 | Cygnal | 55 | 0.092 | |
| 22 | SSRS | 48 | 0.092 | |
| 23 | Silver Bulletin | 40 | 0.091 | |
| 24 | CNalysis | 284 | 0.101 | |
| 25 | Emerson College | 231 | 0.101 | |
| 26 | SurveyUSA | 94 | 0.099 | |
| 27 | Elections Daily | 259 | 0.103 | |
| 28 | Rasmussen Reports | 69 | 0.100 | |
| 29 | Morning Consult | 50 | 0.099 | |
| 30 | SurveyMonkey | 156 | 0.108 | |
| 31 | YouGov | 157 | 0.109 | |
| 32 | Global Strategy Group | 33 | 0.100 | |
| 33 | New York Times | 51 | 0.104 | |
| 34 | Ipsos | 83 | 0.107 | |
| 35 | AtlasIntel | 35 | 0.102 | |
| 36 | Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy | 35 | 0.102 | |
| 37 | Redfield & Wilton Strategies | 33 | 0.105 | |
| 38 | Siena College | 34 | 0.105 | |
| 39 | Remington Research Group | 35 | 0.109 | |
| 40 | Civiqs | 53 | 0.112 | |
| 41 | InsiderAdvantage | 43 | 0.111 | |
| 42 | RMG Research | 29 | 0.113 | |
| 43 | Swayable | 43 | 0.118 | |
| 44 | Targoz Market Research | 27 | 0.118 | |
| 45 | Public Policy Polling | 99 | 0.127 | |
| 46 | Data for Progress | 69 | 0.127 | |
| 47 | Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group | 38 | 0.124 | |
| 48 | Marist College | 79 | 0.132 | |
| 49 | RealClearPolitics | 219 | 0.137 | |
| 50 | Change Research | 97 | 0.136 | |
| 51 | Quinnipiac University | 59 | 0.134 | |
| 52 | University of New Hampshire Survey Center | 30 | 0.129 | |
| 53 | Trafalgar Group | 86 | 0.138 | |
| 54 | Gravis Marketing | 79 | 0.140 | |
| 55 | Monmouth University Polling Institute | 71 | 0.144 | |
| 56 | GQR | 26 | 0.138 | |
| 57 | Impact Research | 32 | 0.147 | |
| 58 | GBAO | 32 | 0.147 | |
| 59 | Susquehanna Polling & Research Inc. | 27 | 0.156 | |
| 60 | Lucid | 26 | 0.171 | |
| Prov. | Harris Insights & Analytics | 20 | 0.074 | |
| Prov. | Public Opinion Strategies | 23 | 0.082 | |
| Prov. | Kalshi | 22 | 0.094 | |
| Prov. | Wick | 19 | 0.105 | |
| Prov. | Patriot Polling | 20 | 0.125 | |
| Prov. | Clarity Campaign Labs | 21 | 0.135 | |
| Prov. | co/efficient | 20 | 0.156 | |
| Prov. | DCCC Targeting and Analytics Department | 22 | 0.203 |
The one metric they all share is win-call Brier (a pollster's win probability is derived from its margin; forecasters publish one directly). A Bayesian two-way model adjusts for race difficulty, the bar is each entity's 90% credible interval (wide = few races), and the board is ranked by a conservative estimate so thin coverage can't top it. Pick an office; lower (left) is better. Sharp forecaster probabilities lead here — switch to pollster ratings for the margin-accuracy view.
Polymarketis included as a market model using our timestamp-matched, resolved race archive. The displayed sample is scoreable overlap, not Polymarket's lifetime coverage. Kalshi is evaluated the same way using its archived pre-election candlesticks. Their uncertainty bars reflect limited matched coverage; unresolved 2026 prices are never treated as scoring data.
VotePredictor+ is a meta-forecaster: it stacks our own model with the published expert consensus, leaning on the human shops where they've historically been sharper (the House) and on the model where it has (Senate, President), with the blend weight fit on prior cycles only. It is ranked in place like everything else, but read it knowing it ensembles the very forecasters it sits beside — an advantage none of them have. The like-for-like entry, and the one to judge the model itself by, is plain VotePredictor Elections.
VotePredictor+ensemble goes one further and folds in the pollster consensus too — but it trails VotePredictor+, and that's the interesting part: the poll signal is already inside the model, which de-biases and recency-weights the same polls far better than a raw pollster average. Adding that average back is redundant and adds no lift — evidence that the gains live in the forecasters' judgment, not in re-counting the polls.
The same field, unadjusted
Raw Brier over 627 resolved races from 2016 to 2024 — no difficulty model, nothing but what each forecaster said and what happened. It is here because it is checkable by hand. VotePredictor places 8th of 15 on it. But each entry is scored only on the races it actually rated, and those sets differ enormously — which is what the adjusted board above exists to correct.
What a Brier score is
The squared distance between what you said and what happened. Call a race at 90% and win it, you score 0.01. Call it at 90% and lose, you score 0.81. Confidence is rewarded only when it is earned, which is why lower is better and why hedging everything at 50% is not a way to win.
Why this board is not the ranking
Only 4 entries cover all 627 races. Everyone else scored a subset they chose, and the safe races are the easy ones, so a thin sample flatters a score. Princeton Election Consortium tops this table on 132 races and sits 12th once difficulty is accounted for. Read the rightmost column alongside the Brier, never on its own.
Two ways to be right, two rankings. Win-call skill grades the probability of picking the winner; margin accuracy grades how close the predicted point spread landed. Each view ranks by its namesake — win-call skill, or average miss — with a skill score alongside (how much you beat a naive prior-result baseline on the same races, so polling only easy races earns nothing). Split by competitiveness (under 10 points = the hard calls). A pollster's win probability is derived from its margin so it can join the win board; forecasters publish only a probability — a number that can't reconstruct a margin — so they sit out the margin board (switch to Win-call skill to see them). Click a column to sort, a name to drill in.
How close the predicted Dem−Rep margin landed (skill vs a prior-result baseline; lower avg miss is better). Forecasters publish only a win probability, so they don't appear here.All races, 2016–2024.
| # | Name | Type | Races | Margin skill | Avg miss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AtlasIntel | Pollster | 35 | 51% | 1.7 pts |
| 2 | InsiderAdvantage | Pollster | 43 | 43% | 3.6 pts |
| 3 | Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research | Pollster | 41 | 58% | 3.8 pts |
| 4 | Rasmussen Reports | Pollster | 69 | 40% | 3.8 pts |
| 5 | OnMessage Inc. | Pollster | 30 | 17% | 3.9 pts |
| 6 | Trafalgar Group | Pollster | 86 | 49% | 4.1 pts |
| 7 | Research Co. | Pollster | 79 | 45% | 4.1 pts |
| 8 | Emerson College | Pollster | 231 | 53% | 4.2 pts |
| 9 | Suffolk University | Pollster | 66 | 59% | 4.2 pts |
| 10 | Susquehanna Polling & Research Inc. | Pollster | 27 | 50% | 4.2 pts |
| 11 | Cygnal | Pollster | 55 | 53% | 4.3 pts |
| 12 | The New York Times/Siena College | Pollster | 146 | 54% | 4.3 pts |
| 13 | Civiqs | Pollster | 53 | 40% | 4.3 pts |
| 14 | Morning Consult | Pollster | 50 | 28% | 4.4 pts |
| 15 | SurveyUSA | Pollster | 94 | 39% | 4.4 pts |
| 16 | SSRS | Pollster | 48 | 33% | 4.5 pts |
| 17 | Marist College | Pollster | 79 | 42% | 4.5 pts |
| 18 | Data for Progress | Pollster | 69 | 34% | 4.9 pts |
| 19 | VotePredictor Elections | Model | 828 | 50% | 5.0 pts |
| 20 | Public Policy Polling | Pollster | 99 | 41% | 5.0 pts |
| 21 | YouGov | Pollster | 157 | 32% | 5.1 pts |
| 22 | Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy | Pollster | 35 | 51% | 5.2 pts |
| 23 | Ipsos | Pollster | 83 | 33% | 5.3 pts |
| 24 | VotePredictor Elections House segmented | Model | 332 | 42% | 5.4 pts |
| 25 | Quinnipiac University | Pollster | 59 | 29% | 5.4 pts |
| 26 | GBAO | Pollster | 32 | 38% | 5.5 pts |
| 27 | Global Strategy Group | Pollster | 33 | 42% | 5.5 pts |
| 28 | Gravis Marketing | Pollster | 79 | 34% | 5.5 pts |
| 29 | Poll average (naive) | Baseline | 828 | 42% | 5.7 pts |
| 30 | Change Research | Pollster | 97 | 43% | 5.8 pts |
| 31 | Swayable | Pollster | 43 | -17% | 6.0 pts |
| 32 | Monmouth University Polling Institute | Pollster | 71 | 33% | 6.0 pts |
| 33 | Redfield & Wilton Strategies | Pollster | 33 | -18% | 6.0 pts |
| 34 | Targoz Market Research | Pollster | 27 | 30% | 6.0 pts |
| 35 | Siena College | Pollster | 34 | 33% | 6.2 pts |
| 36 | RMG Research | Pollster | 29 | -2% | 6.2 pts |
| 37 | Remington Research Group | Pollster | 35 | 23% | 6.3 pts |
| 38 | Lucid | Pollster | 26 | 22% | 6.3 pts |
| 39 | SurveyMonkey | Pollster | 156 | 12% | 6.4 pts |
| 40 | GQR | Pollster | 26 | 26% | 6.5 pts |
| 41 | Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group | Pollster | 38 | 13% | 6.6 pts |
| 42 | Impact Research | Pollster | 32 | 37% | 6.8 pts |
| 43 | University of New Hampshire Survey Center | Pollster | 30 | 7% | 7.6 pts |