(CNN) It might be hip to say that the "polls are broken" or the "polls are wrong," but so far this cycle, it has not been true.

There have been nine congressional (House and Senate) and governor elections with polling in 2017 and 2018, and the polling from them has been pretty good, historically speaking. Let's take a look first at the six special House elections with polling in the final three weeks of the campaigns: Arizona 8, Georgia 6 (the special election and runoff), Montana at large, Pennsylvania 18 and South Carolina 5.

House Special Election Polling Accuracy House polling has been more accurate this cycle Average Absolute Polling Error (% pts.) Election Date Georgia 6 4/18/17 2.5 Montana At-Large 5/25/17 4.5 South Carolina 5 6/20/17 5.5 Georgia 6 Runoff 6/20/17 5.2 3/13/18 3.9 Pennsylvania 18 Arizona 8 4/24/18 4.1 Average 2017-2018 4.0 5.2 Average 2004-2016 Difference in error rate this cycle -1.2 Note: Error is calculated looking at polls in final 3 weeks of campaign. It is computed by taking difference between top two voter getters in the results compared to polls.

Among the 27 polls across these six contests, the average absolute error per poll was just 4.0 points. That's actually 1.1 points better than the average poll in House specials from 2004 to 2016, which was 5.1 points. The average public poll in the recent Arizona 8 special election, for example, was off by only 4.1 points from the final result. All the polls suggested a far tighter race than the +25 Republican partisan lean of the district.

The same story can be told when looking at the three major statewide contests this cycle: Alabama US Senate, New Jersey governor and Virginia governor. Of the 31 polls conducted in the two governor contests, the average error was 5.2 percentage points or right about at the 5.1 percentage point average for polling dating from 1998 to 2015 . The average error in New Jersey was just 1.7 points, compared with 6.6 points in the highly polled Virginia race.

The average error for the 16 polls in the final three weeks of the Alabama Senate race was 5.9 percentage points. That may seem high but it's really not for a special election held in December of an off year. The average error for Senate elections not held on Election Day of a midterm of a presidential year from 1998 to 2016 was 5.8 percentage points. Among the three gold standard pollsters (i.e. those who use live interviews, call cellphones and are transparent about their methodology), the average error dropped to only 3.8 percentage points.

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