Which is the best poll to follow (or should I follow several)?

[Harry Hayfield]

Here in the UK since the general election, I have been tracking the polls of Communicate Research, Ipsos MORI, Populus, Angus Reid, Survnation and ICM because they publish the actual number of people who express an opinion and then publish the information ranked by likeihood to vote. Of these I hold the greatest belief in ICM (as they have managed to project a general election result the best for the past four general elections). How many American polling organisations poll in the same way and of those which is the best?

[Tender Branson]

In general, it looks like PPP, Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA and Mason-Dixon have provided the best results in swing states - while media polls such as the NYT/CBS, or Washington Post and also Gallup etc. have been too Democratic-friendly - or just way off. Rasmussen is somewhere in between. ARG and InsiderAdvantage are mostly crap.

[SmugDealer]

Nate Silver has ranked many pollsters on their accuracy.

Though really, you can't follow 1 pollster, they all have their flaws. Best to follow a guy like Nate, who takes a very well thought-out approach to properly weighting polls and pollsters to come to good predictions. His predictions are almost always on point.

[Vasall des Midas]

PPP is, statistically speaking, the best pollster. But you should follow several.