SPRUCE PINE, NC: Polling asks voters what they think. Datum Signals (datumsignals.com), launched today by Parallax Advisory LLC, forecasts elections from what voters actually do: observable behavior that doesn’t depend on who answers the phone.
In back-testing against past elections, the model scored in the 0.119 to 0.137 Brier range (a standard forecast accuracy measure where lower is better), matching or beating leading public forecasters.
How it works: Datum Signals tracks observable voter behavior rather than survey responses. A fast model follows week-to-week shifts in that behavior while a slow model anchors on fundamentals like incumbency and district history. The two are blended with an error structure that assumes misses correlate across similar states, so one bad assumption can’t quietly wreck the whole map. Outliers are trimmed before they can distort the forecast.
Who it’s for:
Newsrooms can use Datum Signals to pressure-test the polling narrative in the races they cover.
Campaigns can see where a race actually stands before deciding where time and money matter most.
Donors can use it to make sure their dollars go to races that actually need them, not races already won or lost, and VoteROI.com provides a direct way to act on that and donate.
Platforms that need election probabilities, from media dashboards to prediction markets, can license the model directly rather than building their own.
“Every polling miss of the last decade came from the same root problem: you’re modeling answers, not actions,” said David B. Wheeler, founder of Parallax Advisory. “Datum Signals is built for the 2026 midterms and beyond.”
VoteROI.com is the platform’s first licensee. Licensing inquiries: david@parallaxadvisory.llc.
About Parallax Advisory LLC: Founded by five-time founder David B. Wheeler. Parallax Advisory builds data and accountability products including VoteROI.com and Datum Signals. Wheeler is also President of American Muckrakers PAC, Inc.
Contact: David B. Wheeler, david@parallaxadvisory.llc