Which Presidential Polls are the Most Accurate and What are they Saying?

City-County Observer reminds us that there are many poll takers but:

Historically speaking two of these polls have a solid track record for predicting presidential races to within less than 1% of the vote. These two polls are Rasmussen Tracking and Gallup Tracking both of which report results of the trailing week as opposed to the flavor of the day. Their algorithms for sampling are slightly different yet both converge well.

For the 2008 election in which Barack Obama defeated John McCain by a 52.9% to 45.6% margin Rasmussen predicted an Obama victory by 52% to 46% while Gallup predicted an Obama victory of 53% to 42%. An average of those polls would have predicted a result of Obama 52.5% (0.75% error to the low side) to McCain 44% (7.8% error to the low side).

Similarly in the 2004 election when George Bush defeated John Kerry by a margin of 50.7% to 48.3 %, these two polls were very accurate with the average of the two predicting a Bush victory by a margin of 49.6% to 47.8% once again missing the margin of victory by less than 1%. Both polls under estimated Bush’s total while Rasmussen over estimated Kerry’s total by a scant 0.2% of the actual tally.

Just a reminder.