Which pundits got it right, and which missed. See Pundarts: How close were they?.
Something to remember for next time round.
rossum
I do not think you can say for the next election. Many republicans thought with polls showing less democrat enthusiasm and the terrbile state of the economy and debt that the polls oversampling democrats were not realistic and also did not forsee 3 million republicans not voting which could of changed the result of the election had they come out. Whether you will have the same turn out for say Joe Biden and others who are speculated to run in 2016 on the democrat ticket is questionable, from the 1st Black president who is perceived by many to be likeable
But some of the polls were realistic, and forecast the result correctly. Obviously the polls, or aggregates of polls, that got it right are the ones to watch in future elections.
If a prediction was wrong, then it was wrong for a reason: something significant was missed. Perhaps those “Obama will win” polls weren’t oversampling Democrats, perhaps they were correctly sampling Democrats? If they got the right result then they were taking good samples, obviously.
If the polls that got it wrong this time don’t change their methods, then the Republican candidate in four years time may be relying on incorrect polls and hence make incorrect decisions.
rossum
Gallup predicted a republican advantage, so did Rasmussen. I and many others believed that. Many of the polls had OH, PA, IA, NV close. Some polls even had MI in the margin of error. Tampa bay times poll had Romney 6 points ahead in the I - 4 coridor. Many of the polls were wrong, I do not think I will ever be able to trust a state or national poll again
The people complaining loudest about the sampling were the ones who were furthest off. The chart with the story says it all
If there is a next time.
The most entertaining pundit was Karl rove on fox. After the election was called, I switched to fox for comedy relief and fox and rove have me the comical lift I was waiting for.
His little white board definitely let him down. Maybe remedial arithmetic for everyone at Fox?
Except Dick Morris…he’s a lost cause.
Good for Nate Silver, but this is a blog/commentary not a news article