Official election predictions

[Alex]

You've said that many times (about Zogby having been most accurate in 2004) and while that didn't mesh with my memory, it didn't matter much so I didn't go look.

But I finally did (football is boring me today) and I'm finding my recollection seems to have been right. Here's RealClearPolitics's post election polling analysis from 2004 (linking to them because I know it is a source you like). Notice that they have Zogby towards the bottom half of the pack on the national horse race and here's their overall review of Zogby's performance in the 2004 election (bolding mine):

As we all know, Zogby had been on record for months saying that Kerry was going to win this race. Despite his final tracking poll that put Bush ahead by one point nationally, Zogby's polling at the state level reflected his belief that Kerry was going to be the beneficiary of huge turnout - especially among the youth vote. The result is that Zogby missed three of the eleven states he polled in (FL, IA, and NM), had a relatively high error rate across the board (3.8%), and his numbers generally skewed in favor of John Kerry.

Adding insult to injury, Zogby's bizarre election day antics calling for "surprises" in Colorado and Virginia and a decisive 311 electoral vote victory for Kerry suggest he was relying on (not to mention taken in by) the badly skewed early exit poll data.

Let's be honest: Zogby's conduct this year bordered on outrageous. No other independent pollster was out making public predictions of a John Kerry or George W. Bush victory months before hand. And no other pollster decided to wait until 5:30pm Eastern time on election day to post their final numbers.

Per them, if you want most accurate (on the horse race number) from 2004, then you want to be using Pew (currently has 52-46 in favor of Obama) or Battleground (can't find current polling).