Pollsters, the other big winners from Election Day 2008

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With a predictable lag in high profile polling just a couple of weeks past this year’s elections we have a chance to take a look back.

Back all the way to 2008 that is. Not an assessment of the Obama victory, the strong Democratic showing in down ticket races or a look ahead. Instead a peak at the individual polling organizations and their collective scorecard from last year’s Presidential election as we look ahead to 2010.

For those who dismiss the value and accuracy of good polling this also serves as a healthy reminder. The efforts of the majority of polling organizations are laudable considering the often difficult task at hand. In 2008 for intance then Senator Obama with 52.9% of the popular vote defeated John McCain’s total of 45.6% in the general election and by a margin of 7.3%. In the Electoral College President Obama’s margin was 365-173.

Now take a look at this list of major national surveys conducted in the days before the Presidential election last November. Posted below are the results, eighteen in total, from final polling on the question of who will become the nation’s next Commander In Chief. Taking the average from these eighteen worked out to a virtually perfect score. Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 7.3-percentage points in both the polling averages and the actual result from Election Day 2008. The list of individuals is ranked by furthest from the eventual total to most accurate.

2-points;

Battleground (Tarrance Group): Obama 50-48%

Notes: Two “Battleground” polls had different popular vote assessments, the Lake Research Partners ultimately winding up more accurate than the Tarrance Group. Not a single polling organization predicted a McCain victory last Election Day but at just a 2% spread the Battleground Tarrance Group noticeably underestimated President Obama’s eventual performance in 2008.

11-points;

Gallup: Obama 55-44%
Reuters/Zogby: Obama 54-43%

Notes: Interesting to see such well respected organizations as Gallup and Reuters/Zogby actually winding up near the bottom of our list of most accurate pollsters. Perhaps this sheds light on the difficulty of polling on any question large or small, state to state or nationally. Even with their overestimation of Obama’s success Gallup was still within four-percentage points of the actual result. Furthermore the Reuters/Zogby poll was particularly strong in their state by state Elecotral College predictions. Only three states did they have the result wrong; Flipping Florida and North Carolina from “blue” to “red” as well as Indiana which Senator McCain won by just a single percentage point.

5-points;

Battleground (Lake Research Partners): Obama 52-47%
Diageo/Hotline: Obama 50-45%

Notes: Drawing within the margin of error of most national polls final totals from Diageo/Hotline and our second of two Battleground contributors gets closer to the actual result. Diageo had a relatively high 5% of its poll responders claiming to either be undecided or voting for third-party/independent candidates heading into Election Day 2008. The Lake Research Partners made a strong showing figuring Obama’s total within a point of his actual result and overestimating McCain’s by less than a point and a half.

9-points;

Marist: Obama 52-43%
CBS News: Obama 51-42%
ABC/Washington Post: Obama 53-44%

Notes: The top result from the three final surveys above was just 1.2% from the actual result. The ABC/Washington Post poll deserves the most credit of the three figuring Obama’s popular vote total accurately and coming closest to predicting McCain’s. There is an interesting mix of large versus small pools of responders. All three use “likely voter” models but the ABC poll of 2,470 was far larger and likely more rigorous than the smallest conducted (CBS) of 714. The Marist survey also had a relatively small sample of just 804 likely voters yet in spite of being less than a third the size both CBS and Marist's eventual figures were virtually identical to ABC’s.

6-points;

Rasmussen Reports: Obama 52-46%
Pew Research: Obama 52-46%
FiveThirtyEight.com: Obama 52.8 - 46.7%

Notes: Three of the most reliable sources in the world of polling made strong showings in last year’s election all predicting a 52-46% Obama victory. It’s the Electoral College results from Rasmussen and 538 that are most interesting however. Nate Silver’s 538 website popular vote total of 52.8% for Barack Obama was nearly perfect to the 52.9% he captured on Election Day. Silver was a little generous to John McCain (46.7%) making for a margin of 6.1% while commenting that election frontrunners tend to under perform their polling numbers slightly. Silver also predicted a 342-196 Obama victory in the Electoral College, failing to accurately call only the two closest states of Indiana and Missouri for Obama and the narrowly decided Nebraska 2nd District in his favor. Rasmussen meanwhile was similarly accurate to the tune of 312-195 Obama lead heading into Election Day and 31-electoral votes from two states (Ohio, Missouri) polling dead-even. Ultimately Rasmussen failed to call Florida and the narrowly won North Carolina and Indiana for Obama while Ohio and Missouri split for Obama and McCain respectively.

8-points;

American Research Group: Obama 53-45%
NBC/Wall Street Journal: Obama 51-43%

Notes: Two other big winners from Election Night 2008 were ARG and NBC nailing the popular vote margin in favor of then Senator Obama by less than a single percentage point. ARG correctly predicted Obama’s popular vote total at 53% when rounded to the closest whole number and was just over a half a point off on Senator McCain’s final tally. The NBC/Wall Street Journal survey was a tad more conservative in their allocation of votes to either major candidate. The 51-43% Obama lead means that a fairly high 6% of poll responders claimed to be either undecided or were planning on casting their vote for another candidate. Still the nearly accurate margin of eight-points recorded by the NBC poll is laudable.

7-points;

IBD/TIPP: Obama 51.5 – 44.3%
Fox News: Obama 50-43%
Ipsos/McClatchy: 53-46%
CNN/Opinion Research: 53-46%
Democracy Corps: 51-44%

Notes: No fewer did five major pollsters featured in this article essentially nail the outcome of last year’s election. The weakest of the five albeit still rather impressive is Fox News whose 50-43% result left a high number of undecided voters or those uncommitted to either major party candidate. Democracy Corps a Democratic polling organization also scored big with an impressive assessment of the eventual outcome. The Gold medalists from that evening just over a year ago however have to be CNN, Ipsos/McClatchy and Investors Business Daily. Ipsos essentially nailed the correct popular vote margin 53-46% in spite of their modest sample size of just 760 likely voters. CNN was equally effective with an even smaller (714) pool of responders interviewed. CNN also tracked results state by state concluding with confidence that Barack Obama had a 291-157 lead in the Electoral College with 90-votes left undecided heading into Election Day. Lastly the IBD/TIPP poll wins a special award for being within one-tenth of a point to the actual result. Obama’s 7.2% lead in that poll was strikingly similar to his eventual 7.27% margin of victory.