How far behind is too far?

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.