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2006 Senate · VA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2006-10-29 (9 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 46%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.59% · Republican 49.20%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 46 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.594 − 49.201 = 0.393
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (0.393) = 4.606
  4. Absolute miss = |4.606| = 4.606

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24639, race ID 1609 (538 database).