This chart ranks how well 25 major forecasters predicted the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. Obama won the election 332-206, with a 3.9% popular vote margin.
Here are the ranking methodology and criteria for inclusion. I'm only putting professional pundits and big things like Intrade on the chart. But I should additionally mention that my co-blogger Nicholas Beaudrot got every state right.
The rankings are based on how well people predicted individual states, with the penalty for missing a state being the percentage margin of victory. This penalizes people less for getting close states wrong, and more for losing big. The values of the various states, via Huffington Post, are MN=7.7 WI=6.7 NV=6.6 NH=5.8 IA=5.6 PA=5.2 CO=4.7 VA=3.0 OH=1.9 FL=0.9.
I use accuracy of popular vote prediction to break ties. I'm working with a popular vote margin of 3.9%. Since many people didn't try to predict the popular vote, this is somewhat artificial. So I've added the letter-grade component on the right, which doesn't take popular vote into account, except in the case of the Daily Kos folks who get an A+ for getting the popular vote closest to right.
For now, I'll outsource commentary on the success of Nate and the other poll aggregators to xkcd:
# | Predictor | Outcome | Obama / Romney picks | Pop=3.9% | StateFail | Grade |
1 | Markos Moulitsas and Daily Kos Elections | 332-206 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 3.5% | 0 | A+ |
2 | Nate Silver, New York Times | 332-206 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 2.5% | 0 | A |
3 | Simon Jackman, Huffington Post | 332-206 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 1.7% | 0 | A |
4~ | Josh Putnam, Davidson College | 332-206 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 0 | A | |
4~ | Drew Linzer, Emory University | 332-206 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 0 | A | |
6 | Sam Wang, Princeton University | 303-235 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 2.34% | 0.9 | A- |
7 | Jamelle Bouie, American Prospect | 303-235 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 2.2% | 0.9 | A- |
8~ | TPM Polltracker | 303-235 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 0.7% | 0.9 | A- |
8~ | RealClearPolitics | 303-235 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 0.7% | 0.9 | A- |
10 | Intrade Prediction Market | 303-235 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 0.9 | A- | |
11~ | Ezra Klein, Washington Post | 290-248 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 3.9 | B | |
11~ | Larry Sabato, University of Virginia | 290-248 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 3.9 | B | |
13 | Cokie Roberts, ABS NEWS | 294-234 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 5.6 | B | |
14 | Dean Chambers, Unskewed Polls | 275-263 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 1.79% | 10.5 | C+ |
15 | Erik Erickson, Redstate | 285-253 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 17.2 | C | |
16 | SE Cupp, MSNBC | 270-268 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 22.0 | C- | |
17 | Karl Rove, Bush advisor (popular) | 285-253 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 3% | 23.9 | D+ |
18 | Ben Shapiro, National Review | 311-227 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 28.0 | D | |
19 | Ben Domenech, The Transom | 278-260 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | R | 26.7+ME2 | D |
20 | Christian Schneider, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel | 291-247 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 30.5 | D- | |
21 | James Pethokoukis, AEI | 301-227 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 2% | 30.5 | D- |
22 | Michael Barone, Washington Examiner | 315-223 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 33.8 | F | |
23 | George Will, Washington Post | 321-217 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 35.7 | F | |
24 | Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine | 321-217 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 40.5 | F | |
25 | Dick Morris, Fox News | 325-213 | NV PA MN WI IA NH OH CO VA FL | 41.5 | F |
Here are the ranking methodology and criteria for inclusion. I'm only putting professional pundits and big things like Intrade on the chart. But I should additionally mention that my co-blogger Nicholas Beaudrot got every state right.
The rankings are based on how well people predicted individual states, with the penalty for missing a state being the percentage margin of victory. This penalizes people less for getting close states wrong, and more for losing big. The values of the various states, via Huffington Post, are MN=7.7 WI=6.7 NV=6.6 NH=5.8 IA=5.6 PA=5.2 CO=4.7 VA=3.0 OH=1.9 FL=0.9.
I use accuracy of popular vote prediction to break ties. I'm working with a popular vote margin of 3.9%. Since many people didn't try to predict the popular vote, this is somewhat artificial. So I've added the letter-grade component on the right, which doesn't take popular vote into account, except in the case of the Daily Kos folks who get an A+ for getting the popular vote closest to right.
For now, I'll outsource commentary on the success of Nate and the other poll aggregators to xkcd: