In 2008 pre-election polls were off by less than 1.5%

My Dad forwarded me an interesting article posted by the Department of Political Science at
Fordham University.  It is from the 2008 election, and talks about polling.  I know we are discussing polling in an upcoming class, and I wanted to remember the facts - so I figured, why not put it up on my blog!

This is what they found:

• The pre-election polls from 23 public polling organizations predicted a Democratic advantage of 7.52 percentage points in 2008.
• In actuality Obama won by a 6.15% margin in the popular vote.
• The polls were off by less than 1.5% - thats pretty darn good!

Also - below is the list of 20 polling organizations based on their accuracy of the final, national 2008 pre-election polls (as reported on pollster.com).

I'm looking forward to learning more about how polls are conducted, analyzed, and predicted in the coming weeks.  

I wonder if it will be similar in 2012? 

1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)
5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)
5. ARG (10/25-27)
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)