Who is the Most Reliable Political Prognosticator?

http://www.hamilton.edu/news/polls/pundit

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Implications

We have discovered a number of implications from our regressions and analysis of the data. First, we have discovered that six of the analyzed prognosticators are better than a coin flip (with statistical significance.) Four are worse, and the other 16 are not statistically significant. A larger sample can provide better evidence addressing the question of if prognosticators on the whole are better than a coin flip. We understand that being better than a coin flip is not a high bar to set, but it is a serious indictment of prognosticators if they are, on average, no better than a flipped coin.

According to our regression analysis, liberals are better predictors than conservatives—even when taking out the Presidential and Congressional election questions. Whether this holds true from election season to election season needs further evaluation; liberals may have implicit benefits from Obama winning the 2008 election. Tentatively, however, we can assert that liberals are better predictors than conservatives. Additionally, individuals with law degrees were less accurate than those who did not possess law degrees.

A final important implications is that we did not discover that certain types of predictions tended to be more or less accurate than others. For example, we did not see that economic predictions were more accurate than healthcare predictions. This suggests that prognosticators on the whole have no unique expertise in any area—even on political predictions, like the Presidential or party primary elections.