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2017 Governor · VA

Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research · fieldwork ended 2017-11-04 (3 days before the election) · 1,239 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 43%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.89% · Republican 44.98%

D+8.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 43 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.894 − 44.977 = 8.917
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (8.917) = -3.917
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.917| = 3.917

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 50517, race ID 1214 (538 database).