Politico, before the Wisconsin recalls:
In the three campaigns it has polled thus far this cycle, PPP has been within one point in one special House election, within two points in another and within three points of calling a gubernatorial primary.
It's a record that should make it more difficult for outsiders -- in most cases, Republicans -- to take shots at the North Carolina-based pollster when it unloads numbers that don't line up with their own desired outcomes.
It's not just Republicans dismissing PPP. Delivering consistently accurate results hasn't been enough for many legacy media outlets, like the Washington Post:
Our editorial judgments are based on how polls are conducted, not on their results, or apparent accuracy. Now, we flag polls that have really bad track records, but end-of-campaign precision is a necessary, not sufficient condition in our assessments.
Well, unfortunately for the Post's political writers, they will continue to be deprived of the most accurate polling since forever. Check out PPP's final numbers with the election results from last week:
Poll Actual
Moore (D) 4542 42
Harsdorf (R) 54 58
Clark (D) 47 48
Olsen (R) 50 52
King (D) 48 51
Hopper (R) 49 49
Shilling (D) 54 55
Kapanke (R) 43 45
PPP underestimated the blowout in the Moore-Harsforf race by seven points (not a flub, by any measure). Other than that, they were just off by inches. (My bad, I mistyped Moore's number from that final PPP poll -- I typed in 45 points, but PPP actually had her at 42 -- just like the final outcome.)
This has to be the holy grail of polling—scoring near-perfect results for a rare recall election in the middle of summer. Who gets those right? Does ABC's polling outfit? Who knows? It's not like they put their ass on the line polling this kind of contest. They'll stick to safe and much easier to poll statewide races. And then they'll force their writers to ignore data all the best political writers elsewhere can use to inform their writing.
Fact is, no matter how many methodological problems people may have with robo-polling (and the lack of access to cell phones is the biggest), it's not currently affecting the accuracy of PPP's polling. It may in the future, but that future is still not here.
As for now, PPP is having a dream election cycle. It has been scary accurate.