Rothenberg has done a great service by documenting the most accurate pollsters which most accurately predicted the results of last Tuesday’s elections.

In the heat of predictable arguments about which polls are the most accurate leading up to the 2010 mid-term elections, Rothenberg’s list of the most accurate pollsters in the off-year elections will provide the list of the the handful which should be listened to, and which should be ignored.

Here they are:

Rothenberg’s Pollster of the Cycle Award: “SurveyUSA, which once again proved its worth, at least in pre-election polls. The firm’s final Virginia numbers were eerily close…”

The other handful of firms who were the next closest: Public Policy Polling and Quinnipiac University.

Research2000 was called out by Rothenberg was called out for being the most inaccurate because of its overstatement of support for Deeds in Virginia.

Interesting, Rothenberg called the media to task for describing “Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee in New York’s 23rd district, as a moderate.” Rothenberg says:

“Scozzafava doesn’t only support abortion rights - often a marker for Republican “moderates” - she supports gay marriage. But she doesn’t only support gay marriage; she supported President Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal that not a single House Republican favored. But she didn’t just support the stimulus package; she supports the Employee Free Choice Act (what opponents call “card check”), which is opposed by virtually the entire business community. And in the end, of course, she endorsed the Democrat in the race.

Scozzafava is a liberal Republican by any standard, and she should have been labeled as such. She is more liberal than every Republican in the House of Representatives and many Democrats.”