2 elections where the final polls got the result badly wrong. Each deep dive sets out what the polls said, what happened, what the official inquiries and the pollsters found, what our own data shows, and what the pollsters changed afterwards. Every one of these misses is in the record our forecasts learn from.
How far out the final polls were
The error on the lead between the top two: the final polls' average against the result, in points.
The final polls showed a three-way tie, with the PVV on 27 to 29 seats; it won 37 seats and 23.5% as undecided and tactical voters on the right broke for Wilders in the last two days. All three pollsters missed in the same direction, the mark of a late swing rather than one firm's method.
The final polls had the VVD only about five seats ahead of the PVV; Rutte won by 13 seats and 8.2 points. Every pollster understated the VVD, and the pollsters' own re-interviews found panels that leaned left plus a late move to Rutte during the row with Turkey.
For each country we measure how far the final polls missed at past elections. We take half the average miss off today's polls only where that would have made past forecasts better, testing each election without knowing its result; elsewhere the polls stand as published. Every forecast then runs thousands of simulated elections with polling errors the size of these, so a miss like the ones above is inside our ranges, not a surprise. Polls against results, every election · Our forecast record · Pollster leaderboard
Netherlands · 22 November 2023
6.9 pts