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2010 House · VA-9

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2010-10-12 (21 days before the election) · 633 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 41%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.41% · Republican 51.21%

R+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 41 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.407 − 51.213 = -4.806
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (-4.806) = 14.806
  4. Absolute miss = |14.806| = 14.806

The poll overstated the Democrat by 14.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 52141, race ID 4872 (538 database).