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2010 Governor · SD

Nielson Brothers Polling · fieldwork ended 2010-10-21 (12 days before the election) · 679 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 43%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.49% · Republican 61.51%

R+23.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 43 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.487 − 61.513 = -23.026
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-23.026) = 20.025
  4. Absolute miss = |20.025| = 20.025

The poll overstated the Democrat by 20.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 52085, race ID 1304 (538 database).