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2006 Governor · PA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2006-10-20 (18 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 35%

D+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.37% · Republican 39.63%

D+20.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 35 = 21.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.365 − 39.635 = 20.730
  3. Signed miss = 21.00 − (20.730) = 0.271
  4. Absolute miss = |0.271| = 0.271

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24358, race ID 1353 (538 database).