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2009 Governor · NJ

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2009-10-24 (10 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 33%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.88% · Republican 48.46%

R+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 33 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.879 − 48.457 = -3.578
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (-3.578) = 12.578
  4. Absolute miss = |12.578| = 12.578

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 42454, race ID 1311 (538 database).