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2017 Governor · VA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2017-10-31 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47.4% · Republican 43.4%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.89% · Republican 44.98%

D+8.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.4 − 43.4 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.894 − 44.977 = 8.917
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (8.917) = -4.917
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.917| = 4.917

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 50526, race ID 1214 (538 database).