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2010 Governor · SD

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2010-10-20 (13 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 54%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.49% · Republican 61.51%

R+23.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 54 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.487 − 61.513 = -23.026
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-23.026) = 4.025
  4. Absolute miss = |4.025| = 4.025

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 52086, race ID 1304 (538 database).