Bummer for Bommai, Cong Sweeps Karnataka: How Accurate Were the Exit Polls?

Did the exit polls get it right this time around in Karnataka?

How accurate were the exit polls in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly election?

(Photo: Meghnad Bose/The Quint)

The exit polls announced their estimates and made their predictions on 10 May, and three days later, we now have the results of the Karnataka Assembly elections 2023.

So, how accurate were the exit polls? Did they get it right this time around?

Election Results Versus Exit Polls

Here are the predictions made by various exit polls.

(Photo: The Quint)

And here are the actual leads/results as of 7:04 pm on Counting Day. Of these, 214 were final results, and the 10 remaining seats were leads.

• BJP: 65

• Congress: 136

• JD(S): 19

• Others: 4

• India Today-Axis My India got their forecast spot on, with their poll tallies almost entirely accurate compared to the actual election results.

• Jan Ki Baat got their exit poll completely wrong, having grossly overestimated BJP's performance. Their prediction of the BJP getting 94 to 117 seats was a far cry from the BJP's performance on Counting Day.

• CVoter got it right to the extent that they had predicted that Congress would be the single-largest party. However, their estimated range for the Congress was 100 to 112, below the majority mark of 113. On Counting Day, not only did Congress cross the halfway mark, it did so by quite an emphatic distance.

• Republic P-MARQ's prediction was along the same line as CVoter's, that Congress would likely be the single-largest party, but fall below the majority mark. And they were wrong on that count, making their poll miss the bull's eye by quite a bit.

• Zee News-Matrize was a tad closer, having given the Congress a range of 103 to 118. They were right about the single-largest party, and their upper limit of the Congress tally was right about the party crossing the magic figure as well.

So, all in all, barring the Jan Ki Baat exit poll which was completely wrong, the other exit polls accurately predicted that Congress would come out on top.

However, most of them underestimated how decisively the Congress would do so, crossing the majority figure with ease. The exception to this rule was India Today-Axis My India, who hit the bull's eye with their forecast.