VotePredictor
Track record

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 / pollsterRacesWin Brier90% range (wider = less data)
1VotePredictor Elections+ensemblemodel + forecasters + pollsters8280.078
2VotePredictor Elections+model + forecaster consensus8280.079
3FiveThirtyEightinactive6950.081
4OnMessage Inc.300.072
5The New York Times/Siena College1460.082
6JHK Forecasts4020.085
7VotePredictor Electionsour model8280.087
8Race to the WH2840.085
9Cook Political6270.087
10Sabato's Crystal Ball6270.089
11The Economist5100.090
12Inside Elections4010.092
13Fox News1780.092
14Polymarket450.086
15Split Ticket2030.094
16DDHQ/Decision Desk5420.096
17Research Co.790.092
18Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research410.089
19Suffolk University660.092
20Princeton Election Consortium1320.097
21Cygnal550.092
22SSRS480.092
23Silver Bulletin400.091
24CNalysis2840.101
25Emerson College2310.101
26SurveyUSA940.099
27Elections Daily2590.103
28Rasmussen Reports690.100
29Morning Consult500.099
30SurveyMonkey1560.108
31YouGov1570.109
32Global Strategy Group330.100
33New York Times510.104
34Ipsos830.107
35AtlasIntel350.102
36Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy350.102
37Redfield & Wilton Strategies330.105
38Siena College340.105
39Remington Research Group350.109
40Civiqs530.112
41InsiderAdvantage430.111
42RMG Research290.113
43Swayable430.118
44Targoz Market Research270.118
45Public Policy Polling990.127
46Data for Progress690.127
47Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group380.124
48Marist College790.132
49RealClearPolitics2190.137
50Change Research970.136
51Quinnipiac University590.134
52University of New Hampshire Survey Center300.129
53Trafalgar Group860.138
54Gravis Marketing790.140
55Monmouth University Polling Institute710.144
56GQR260.138
57Impact Research320.147
58GBAO320.147
59Susquehanna Polling & Research Inc.270.156
60Lucid260.171
Prov.Harris Insights & Analytics200.074
Prov.Public Opinion Strategies230.082
Prov.Kalshi220.094
Prov.Wick190.105
Prov.Patriot Polling200.125
Prov.Clarity Campaign Labs210.135
Prov.co/efficient200.156
Prov.DCCC Targeting and Analytics Department220.203

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.

#ForecasterBrier · lower is better
2Race to the WH0.083
3Inside Elections0.083
4FiveThirtyEight0.084
5JHK Forecasts0.090
6Cook Political0.090
8VotePredictor Elections0.094
9The Economist0.098
10CNalysis0.100
11DDHQ/Decision Desk0.104
12Elections Daily0.105
13Split Ticket0.107
14Fox News0.113
15RealClearPolitics0.148

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.

#NameTypeRacesMargin skillAvg miss
1AtlasIntelPollster3551%1.7 pts
2InsiderAdvantagePollster4343%3.6 pts
3Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. ResearchPollster4158%3.8 pts
4Rasmussen ReportsPollster6940%3.8 pts
5OnMessage Inc.Pollster3017%3.9 pts
6Trafalgar GroupPollster8649%4.1 pts
7Research Co.Pollster7945%4.1 pts
8Emerson CollegePollster23153%4.2 pts
9Suffolk UniversityPollster6659%4.2 pts
10Susquehanna Polling & Research Inc.Pollster2750%4.2 pts
11CygnalPollster5553%4.3 pts
12The New York Times/Siena CollegePollster14654%4.3 pts
13CiviqsPollster5340%4.3 pts
14Morning ConsultPollster5028%4.4 pts
15SurveyUSAPollster9439%4.4 pts
16SSRSPollster4833%4.5 pts
17Marist CollegePollster7942%4.5 pts
18Data for ProgressPollster6934%4.9 pts
19VotePredictor ElectionsModel82850%5.0 pts
20Public Policy PollingPollster9941%5.0 pts
21YouGovPollster15732%5.1 pts
22Mason-Dixon Polling & StrategyPollster3551%5.2 pts
23IpsosPollster8333%5.3 pts
24VotePredictor Elections House segmentedModel33242%5.4 pts
25Quinnipiac UniversityPollster5929%5.4 pts
26GBAOPollster3238%5.5 pts
27Global Strategy GroupPollster3342%5.5 pts
28Gravis MarketingPollster7934%5.5 pts
29Poll average (naive)Baseline82842%5.7 pts
30Change ResearchPollster9743%5.8 pts
31SwayablePollster43-17%6.0 pts
32Monmouth University Polling InstitutePollster7133%6.0 pts
33Redfield & Wilton StrategiesPollster33-18%6.0 pts
34Targoz Market ResearchPollster2730%6.0 pts
35Siena CollegePollster3433%6.2 pts
36RMG ResearchPollster29-2%6.2 pts
37Remington Research GroupPollster3523%6.3 pts
38LucidPollster2622%6.3 pts
39SurveyMonkeyPollster15612%6.4 pts
40GQRPollster2626%6.5 pts
41Garin-Hart-Yang Research GroupPollster3813%6.6 pts
42Impact ResearchPollster3237%6.8 pts
43University of New Hampshire Survey CenterPollster307%7.6 pts