No time right now for fancy graphs but since the Czech election produced a result that was not predicted by the polls (the best pre-election scenario was a narrow center right majority if KDU-CSL made it into parliament, whereas what we appear to get is a substantial center right majority even without KDU-CSL) I want to make a quick post of the data on results and polls for 2010 and, for comparison’s sake, for 2006 (thanks to STEM which posted a similar analysis in that year, largely because their numbers looked the best).
Quick conclusions from this data:
- The Impact of Firm. Factum and CVVM did best in terms of raw numbers in 2010 while Factum and SANEP did best in percentage terms. Stem, which the best of the major players in 2006 by a wide margin, finished in the middle of the pack this year. Median, about which I have written elsewhere, did very well on the two largest parties, but was so wrong on the others that it finished last in both percentage and raw stats. (To badly paraphrase Marshall McLuhan the [problem with] Median is the method). The overall range, however, was quite narrow: between 19.4 points and 23.4 points.
- The Impact of Time. Everybody did badly this election compared to last time. Factum maintained about the same performance in 2010 as in 2006 but its relatively poor performance in 2006 was good enough for first or second place (depending on the measure) in 2010. Part of this, though, depends on the number of parties in the sample. Limit it to just the three long-standing parties and the difference between polls and reality for 2010 is not that different from 2006; similarly, the average of percentage difference (raw difference divided by party’s actual score) is also only slightly worse in 2010 than in 2006.
- The Impact of Party. The biggest single differences between polls and reality were for CSSD (6.7 points less) and TOP09 (5.5 points more), with all of the rest falling into a narrow range between 1.1 and 1.9. In percentage terms, however, it was SPO and SZ whose results were most at odds with the polls (+43% and -48% respectively), followed closely by TOP09 (+33%) and CSSD (-30%).
- The Asymmetry of Error. While 2006 had its share of non-predictive polls, 2010 is notable for the ways in which the polls did not correspond to the actual parliamentary (and presumably governmental) outcomes in the way that differences accumulated on the two main sides of the political spectrum. In 2006 poll predictions averaged 3.0 points lower than actual results for CSSD but this was counteracted by polls that were on average 3.5 points higher than actual results for KSCM. In 2010, by contrasts, the difference between polls and reality tended to enhance the difference: results were 6.7 points lower than polls for CSSD and 1.9 points lower than polls for KSCM (they were 1.9 points higher than average for SPO, but this provided no compensation in seats because SPO failed to enter parliament. On the right, there was some compensation but not much: results were 1.1 points lower than polls for KDU-CSL and 1.7 points for ODS, but these were more than outweighed by results that were 5.5 points higher than polls for TOP09 and 1.5 points higher for VV. The result was a 10.9 point difference in favor of the right in 2010 compared to 4 points in 2006 (9.8 to 1 if SZ is counted as right).
This was more than enough to compensate for the loss of all seats belonging to KDU-CSL and still give the center-right a significant majority of votes and, especially, seats in parliament.
| 2010 | Actual | Factum | CVVM | STEM | Median | SANEP | SC&C | Average Absolute difference | Factum | CVVM | STEM | Median | SANEP | SC&C | Average |
| CSSD | 22.1 | -4.2 | -8.4 | -8.8 | -4.1 | -7.8 | – | 6.7 | -19% | -38% | -40% | -19% | -35% | – | 30% |
| ODS | 20.2 | -2.7 | 1.2 | -1.2 | 1.2 | -2.1 | – | 1.7 | -13% | 6% | -6% | 6% | -10% | – | 8% |
| TOP09 | 16.7 | 5.8 | 2.7 | 6.3 | 6.0 | 6.6 | – | 5.5 | 35% | 16% | 38% | 36% | 39% | – | 33% |
| KDU-CSL | 4.4 | -1.1 | 0.9 | -0.1 | -3.1 | -0.3 | – | 1.1 | -25% | 20% | -2% | -71% | -7% | – | 25% |
| KSCM | 11.3 | -1.8 | -1.7 | -2.2 | -2.0 | -1.6 | – | 1.9 | -16% | -15% | -20% | -18% | -14% | – | 17% |
| SPO | 4.3 | 1.7 | 2.3 | 1.7 | -2.5 | -1.2 | – | 1.9 | 40% | 54% | 39% | -57% | -27% | – | 43% |
| SZ | 2.3 | -0.3 | -2.2 | -1.2 | -1.2 | -0.6 | – | 1.1 | -13% | -95% | -53% | -52% | -26% | – | 48% |
| VV | 10.9 | -1.7 | -0.6 | 0.7 | 3.3 | 1.1 | – | 1.5 | -16% | -6% | 7% | 30% | 10% | – | 14% |
| Sum of absolute difference for all Major Parties | 19.4 | 20.0 | 22.1 | 23.4 | 21.3 | – | 21.2 | 22% | 31% | 25% | 36% | 21% | – | 27% | |
| Sum of absolute difference ODS, CSSD, KSCM | 8.7 | 11.3 | 12.1 | 7.3 | 11.5 | – | 10.2 | 16% | 20% | 22% | 14% | 20% | – | 18% | |
| 2006 | Actual | Factum | CVVM | STEM | Median | SANEP | SC&C | Average Absolute difference | Factum | CVVM | STEM | Median | SANEP | S-C&C | Average |
| ODS | 35.4 | 7.6 | 3.4 | 2.2 | – | – | -0.2 | 4.4 | 21% | 10% | 6% | – | – | -1% | 12% |
| CSSD | 32.3 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 0.9 | – | – | 4.3 | 3.0 | 12% | 13% | 3% | – | – | 13% | 9% |
| KSCM | 12.8 | -4.5 | -2.7 | -3.4 | – | – | -1.2 | -3.5 | -35% | -21% | -27% | – | – | -9% | 28% |
| KDU-CSL | 7.2 | -1.8 | 1.7 | 0.4 | – | – | 0.5 | 0.1 | -25% | 24% | 6% | – | – | 7% | 18% |
| SZ | 6.3 | -2.3 | -4.2 | -2.5 | – | – | -3.6 | -3.0 | -37% | -67% | -40% | – | – | -57% | 48% |
| Sum of absolute difference for all Major Parties | 20.0 | 16.3 | 9.4 | – | – | 9.8 | 13.9 | 26% | 27% | 16% | – | – | 17% | 23% | |
| Sum of absolute difference ODS, CSSD, KSCM | 15.9 | 10.4 | 6.5 | – | – | 5.7 | 9.6 | 23% | 15% | 12% | – | – | 8% | 16% | |
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