From Fordham University's Costas Panagopoulos, director of the university's Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.



"For all the ridicule directed towards pre-election polling, the final poll estimates were not far off from the actual nationwide vote shares for the two candidates," said Dr. Panagopoulos. On average, pre-election polls from 28 public polling organizations projected a Democratic advantage of 1.07 percentage points on Election Day, which is only about 0.63 percentage points away from the current estimate of a 1.7-point Obama margin in the national popular vote. [...] 1. PPP (D)

1. Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP

3. YouGov

4. Ipsos/Reuters

5. Purple Strategies

6. NBC/WSJ

6. CBS/NYT

6. YouGov/Economist

9. UPI/CVOTER

10. IBD/TIPP

11. Angus-Reid

12. ABC/WP

13. Pew Research

13. Hartford Courant/UConn

15. CNN/ORC

15. Monmouth/SurveyUSA

15. Politico/GWU/Battleground

15. FOX News

15. Washington Times/JZ Analytics

15. Newsmax/JZ Analytics

15. American Research Group

15. Gravis Marketing

23. Democracy Corps (D)

24. Rasmussen

24. Gallup

26. NPR

27. National Journal

28. AP/GfK

Ha ha, look at Gallup way at the bottom, even below Rasmussen. But let's focus on the positive—PPP took top honors with a two-way tie for first place. Both their tracking poll and their weekly poll for Daily Kos/SEIU ended up with the same 50-48 margin. The final result? Obama 51.1-48.9—a 2.2-point margin.

PPP is a robo-pollster that doesn't call cell phones, which was supposedly a cardinal sin—particularly when their numbers weren't looking so hot for Obama post-first debate. But there's a reason we've worked with them the past year—because their track record is the best in the biz.

So thanks to PPP for making us look good, and thanks to SEIU for sponsoring our weekly State of the Nation poll for the past two years. It's been an awesome ride.

One last point—YouGov and Ipsos/Reuters were both internet polls. YouGov has now been pretty good two elections in a row. With cell phones becoming a bigger and bigger issue every year, it seems clear that the internet is the future of polling. I'm glad someone is figuring it out.

But let's be clear, you have to go down to number six on the list to get to someone who called cell phones. And Gallup called 50 percent cell phones and they were a laughingstock this cycle.