… If you’ve been following elections in recent years, it’s probably been drilled into you that averages of polls are usually quite accurate near the end of the campaign. But the election is still 6 months away, and polling is infrequent in many races — which presents a problem for anyone trying to forecast election results now. To address this, election forecasters incorporate broader political factors called “fundamentals” into their models.
The Upshot has created a model that’s mostly based on polling, with fundamentals playing a supplementary role. … The [Washington] Post, by contrast, doesn’t currently use polls at all — their model is entirely based on fundamentals. CONT.
Andrew Prokop, Vox