How far behind is too far?
Pick how far the second party trails and how long is left. We look up every one of 901 elections in ten countries and count how many came back.
2 of 3 · Every country
The odds of a comeback, 3 years out runners-up by how far behind, every country
2–4 pts
4–6 pts
6–8 pts
8–10 pts
10–14 pts
14–20 pts
20+ pts
20% of runners-up 12.0 points or more behind finished first (2 of 10). Few cases this far out: try a nearer horizon.
Today's races the second party in each of our averages, against every election we hold
United Kingdom (latest possible date)
Reform UK trails Labour by 5.9 with 1017 days to go
Canada
The Conservatives trail the Liberals by 16.3 with 1078 days to go
Australia (latest possible date)
One Nation trails Labor by 0.6 with 565 days to go
Germany (latest possible date)
The CDU/CSU trails the AfD by 7.0 with 874 days to go
Spain
The PSOE trails the PP by 3.9 with 27 days to go
Italy (latest possible date)
The PD trails FdI by 7.4 with 415 days to go
Netherlands
The PVV trails PRO by 6.2 with 1290 days to go
Poland (latest possible date)
PiS trails KO by 10.7 with 374 days to go
Every runner-up that far behind 3 years out 3 cases; comebacks first
Germany Bundestag 2021
SPD
11.1 points behind → 25.7% ✓ finished first
UK general election 1974
Conservatives
10.0 points behind → 38.8% ✓ finished first
UK general election 2005
Conservatives
12.2 points behind → 33.2%
The biggest comebacks from 3 years out
Conservative −20.8 Conservative −20.2 SPD −11.1 Conservatives −10.0 Conservatives −9.8 Labour −8.5 PiS −7.5 Conservative −6.8 Conservatives −5.2 Liberal −3.1How this works
For every election we hold polls for, we take each party's poll average at fixed points before polling day (two weeks, a month, two months, and so on to three years) and its gap to the party leading that average. Only the leader and the runner-up count: a comeback means the second party overtaking the first. A party "finished first" if it won the most votes, which is not always office: Gore in 2000 and Clinton in 2016 won the popular vote. "That far behind" means within two points either side of the figure you chose.
The data: Great Britain 1950–2024 (Mark Pack's PollBase; February 1974 only, as the two 1974 elections share a year); Australia, Canada, France (first round), Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain from our own poll archive; US Senate, governor and presidential races state by state since 2000; the US national vote since 1952 (before 2000, Gallup's June poll only). Past comebacks are not a forecast: our forecast for each country already allows for how much polls move this far out.