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2002 Governor · IL

Richard Day Research · fieldwork ended 2002-10-20 (16 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 41%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.19% · Republican 45.07%

D+7.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 41 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.193 − 45.069 = 7.124
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (7.124) = 1.877
  4. Absolute miss = |1.877| = 1.877

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25597, race ID 1392 (538 database).