[frogjerk]

How accurate was Sabato in 2004?

[advertising guy]

Sabado was quoted all day in '04 about the dems winning...answer your question ?.....lol

[finnman69]

Sabato was failry accurate in 2004. He claims he is very accurate.

His final was a 269-269 electoral tie and he got Florida and Wisconsin both wrong going for Kerry.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=LJS2004110901

We're proud of our record at the Crystal Ball, having forecast 525 of 530 contests correctly--a 99 percent accuracy rating. We missed one Senate race, one House race, one governor's race, and two states in the Electoral College, and like all political analysts reading the election returns, we are kicking ourselves for getting those wrong! But it was our best year ever, and we are thrilled.

[SkyPilot]

How accurate was Sabato in 2004?

Read for yourself from his own site:

Kerry Will Beat George Bush (2004)

The Final Predictions
Larry J. Sabato
Director, U.Va. Center for Politics
As we conclude this amazing election campaign, we have just one question for our readers: When has an incumbent candidate ever won when he is tied with his challenger on election eve? The answer is never--at least in the age of polling that began in the 1930s. So George W. Bush needs to beat history, and the polls, to win the election tomorrow. It is possible that the vagaries of the Electoral College will enable Bush to eke out a victory, and it is also possible that the Republican Party's get out the vote effort will equal or exceed the Democrats' GOTV efforts. But if the Democrats are even half-right about the potential of their GOTV in producing additional new voters, then Kerry will win, perhaps more comfortably than anyone now suspects.

[andy58-in-nh]

Sabato definitely overestimated the Kerry vote for President in '04 (had Florida leaning for Kerry, for example - Bush won by a significant amount). On the House, he was dead-on though (called 232R-203D which was exactly right), and had the Senate as 53R-46D, which was off by 1R - with one Independent.

I think what he is missing this year is the same thing that all pollsters are missing: their methods no longer provide reliable results, as vast swaths of Republican voters are not responsive to polling (or included in it), and yet turn out in far greater numbers than ever before on Election Day. We'll see.

[youthgonewild]

He missed 1 House race (Baron Hill lost) and 1 Senate race (Tony Knowles lost). Best track record in prognostication, although he did lose the Presidency.

[CharacterCounts]

I seem to remember the same type of predictions in 2002. But, it didn't happen. The polls were off in the direction of favoring Democrats by margins of 3% to 16%.

[jveritas]

Here how accurate democrat activist Sabato was in 2004:

Larry Sabato's crystal ball predicts a tie

University of Virginia Professor and director of the U-V-A center for Politics... Larry Sabato...predicts an electoral college tie in the presidential election. While he goes on to say that the election probably will not end in an electoral college tie...if ever there was a year for such an outcome...it would be this year. The prediction also says that if turnout is around 115 to 117 million...Bush should win...however if turnout is higher Kerry may have the edge.

For more detailed information on Sabato's predictions...visit

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2004/president/electoratemap.php Link: http://wtju.radio.virginia.edu/newsarch.rb?d=2004-11-02.html