Care to back up that last statement? It doesn't agree with my memory. Are you only talking about presidential elections? Are you counting Bush vs Gore where the popular vote did favor Gore, and only the electoral vote went for Bush?

If you are talking only about presidential elections in the last twenty years, there was 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. Of those five, the Democrats got a larger popular vote in three of them, and a fourth was so close it came down to the last presincts in the last state. So the polls, which cover the popular vote not the electoral vote, were right in three of the five, and within the margin of error on a fourth. So I guess the only one I am doubting you on is the 1988 election. I don't remember that one as being a particularly close election.