Ranking The Pollsters

With the onslaught of polls this election, I thought it would be interesting to rank the various outfits to see how accurate they were in the final analysis. In fairness, Ipsos did their last polling October 10, Angus Reid and Strategic Counsel October 11, NANOS, Decima and EKOS on October 13. Here are the actual results, and the pollsters final predictions, ranked on accuracy, with the difference in brackets:

CPC 37.6%

Ang Reid 38% (.4)
Ekos 34.8% (2.8)
NANOS 34.2% (3.4)
Decima 34% (3.6)
Ipsos 34% (3.6)
Str Cou 33% (4.6)

Lib 26.2%

EKOS 26.4% (.2)
NANOS 26.7% (.5)
Decima 25% (1.2)
Ang Reid 28% (1.8)
Str Cou 28% (1.8)
Ipsos 29% (2.8)


NDP 18.2%

Ipsos 18% (.2)
Str Cou 18% (.2)
Ang Reid 19% (.8)
Decima 19% (.8)
EKOS 19.4% (1.2)
NANOS 21.4% (3.2)


Greens 6.8%

Ang Reid 6% (.8)
Ipsos 8% (1.2)
NANOS 8.2% (1.4)
Decima 9% (2.2)
EKOS 9.6% (2.8)
Str Cou 11% (4.2)

To gauge the most accurate overall, we simply add up all the total "off" numbers for all the parties. Surprisingly to some, Angus Reid, the dreaded "online" pollster comes out on top, by a wide margin:

Total:

Ang Reid (3.8)
EKOS (7)
Decima (7.8)
Ipsos (7.8)
NANOS (8.5)
Str Cou (10.8)

One, small caveat here, if we take NANOS final night of polling, he is actually the closest. However, it was a rolling poll, one night of polling is only a partial sample, but it does show that NANOS saw the late breaking vote:

NANOS:
CP 37.1% (.5)
Lib 26.7% (.5)
NDP 20.3% (2.1)
Greens 7.1% (.3)

Total- (3.4)

Overall, the pollsters did a decent job this election. It seems the Conservative total was the least accurate, with the exception of Angus Reid. At the very least, these results should end the "online" poll= crap argument that occurs whenever somebody mentions this outfit. Angus Reid was also the most accurate in many recent provincial elections, so let's give the methodology it's due, the results should be taken as seriously as other, more traditional findings.