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2002 Governor · IA

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 2002-10-31 (5 days before the election) · 807 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 40%

D+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.69% · Republican 44.51%

D+8.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 40 = 12.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.686 − 44.513 = 8.173
  3. Signed miss = 12.00 − (8.173) = 3.827
  4. Absolute miss = |3.827| = 3.827

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25613, race ID 1393 (538 database).