With last night's results in Wisconsin, PPP can boast a complete sweep in the Wisconsin recall races -- a feat extra impressive given that these were unprecedented recalls, in the middle of summer.
PPP Actual
Holperin (D) 55 55
Simac (R) 41 45
Wirch (D) 55 58
Steitz (R) 42 42
Moore (D) 42 42
Harsdorf (R) 54 58
Clark (D) 47 48
Olsen (R) 50 52
King (D) 48 51
Hopper (R) 49 49
Shilling (D) 54 55
Kapanke (R) 43 45
Hansen (D) 62 67
VanderLeest (R) 34 33
Now, rational people will look at PPP's track record and say "not all pollsters are accurate 100 percent of the time, but these guys are pretty darn good!" But over at the Washington Post (and other legacy media outlets), their writers aren't allowed to cite automated polls because they are different and scary! So that leads them to write things like this, from Chris Cillizza:
Tight race expected in final Wisconsin recalls
The Wisconsin recall fight ends Tuesday, and while the state Senate is no longer in play, Republicans could cut into the gains Democrats made last week. One Democratic seat in tomorrow’s election is probably safe; the race for the other one is very close. ..
Polls are not much help in predicting the contests’ outcome. Republicans are touting an automated survey that showed the race for Holperin’s seat as too-close-to-call. Democrats counter by pointing to an automated poll that shows both Holperin and Wirch with double-digit leads. (The Washington Post does not publish automated poll results.)
Polls are actually very helpful in predicting the outcome. The results speak for themselves. What isn't helpful is shitty Republican ideology-driven polling like Rasmussen and this new kid on the block, We Poll America that claimed the race was a 51-49 Holperin lead.
And yes, those GOP polling hacks are ideologically motivated.
Democrats easily held the two state Senate seats that were up for re-election last night. Public Policy Polling predicted the result; another automated pollster, We Ask America, nearly didn't. That organization burned up the interwebs with a poll showing the most endangered Democrat, Jim Holperin, leading his Tea Party-inspired GOP opponent by a slim 51-49 margin. That gave conservatives some hope that one of the "fleebagger" Democrats could be defeated at the polls. Holperin ended up winning by 10 points.
"It's so hard to tell when you do one poll," We Ask America COO Gregg Durham told me. "One thing you can't judge is what the turnout will be. In this case, unions were heavily involved in turning out Democratic votes. Now, I will stand by the numbers -- this may be what the general electorate wanted, but not what the people who turned out wanted.
Got that? The real electorate wanted what the Republican pollster said they wanted, but the fake electorate that actually turned out didn't. And they would have gotten away with it had it not been for those meddling unions! Obviously you can judge what the turnout will be. PPP did. But of course, they are actually competent.
So back to the competent pollsters, remember that PPP's winning streak began even before the Wisconsin recalls.
In the three campaigns it has polled thus far this cycle, PPP has been within one point in one special House election, within two points in another and within three points of calling a gubernatorial primary.
It's a record that should make it more difficult for outsiders -- in most cases, Republicans -- to take shots at the North Carolina-based pollster when it unloads numbers that don't line up with their own desired outcomes.
Of course, it is inevitable that PPP will hit a stinker at some point in the future. Remember, they're only supposed to get it right 95% of the time under the best case scenario. But it's rare for a pollster to be this consistently accurate, particularly given the toughness of the races polled, while being this prolific. (The Field Poll is scary accurate as well, but they only poll California.)
We have a real advantage here at Daily Kos considering that 1) PPP is our polling partner, and we'll continue to poll extensively this cycle, and 2) we're not afraid of new technology like legacy media outlets like the Washington Post. That means if you want the best and most complete political coverage through 2012, you're in the right place.