Experts: Polls' predictive accuracy "less than 50/50" at this point

[Marzupialis]

"Political scientists Chris Wlezien and Bob Erikson have examined that history for their forthcoming book on election forecasting, "The Timeline of Presidential Election Campaigns." A chart from the book (reproduced below with permission) shows that the predictive power of head-to-head polls increases gradually over the last 300 days of the campaign. (Simply put, the closer the adjusted R squared is to 1, the more perfectly the poll predicted the election.) In late October, polls will be highly predictive of the outcome, but now, with more than 200 days remaining until the election, the predictive accuracy of polling is less than 50/50."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/obama-romney-polls-disagree-close-race_n_1429819.html?ref=@pollster

[saras]

1. LESS than 50/50 - just predict the opposite and you can do better than that...

EXIT polls, on the other hand, continue to show an astonishingly high rate of accuracy except where electronic voting machines and corrupt election officials exist in the same place.

[chollybocker]

2. "Experts: Polls' predictive accuracy "less than 50/50" at this point"

There are not enough drugs on this planet for me to be able to parse that headline. But if the election was held today, I'd be surprised, and against it.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. So, wait, a poll from April isn't necessarily going to be right in November?

Well that's just crazy talk!

[Arkana]

4. Well, remember--it's still April.

The conventions are months away and Mitt hasn't even officially clinched the nomination yet. 7 months in politics is an eternity.

[WI_DEM]

5. of course most of the polls still do have Obama ahead.

[bemildred]

6. Right, you might just as well throw darts. nt