The election is over, and the big winners were Democrats - and pollsters. Despite endless Republican hyperventilation over the accuracy and reliability of state polls, those polls proved to be extremely accurate in projecting the outcome of the presidential election.
Of course, people who had actually done the math knew that a relentless focus on aggregating state polls was the best way to project the outcome. This year we saw several different attempts to aggregate polls. Nate Silver's 538 is, of course, the best-known of all the aggregators, but was his formula the most accurate, in light of this year's actual results?
The answer is yes. According to my calculations, 538 remains the gold standard for presidential poll aggregation. Below the orange squiggle, I will detail how I came to this conclusion.
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