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2002 Governor · MA

RKM Research and Communications Inc. · fieldwork ended 2002-10-31 (5 days before the election) · 465 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 41%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.94% · Republican 49.77%

R+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 41 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.936 − 49.767 = -4.831
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-4.831) = 5.831
  4. Absolute miss = |5.831| = 5.831

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54733, race ID 1397 (538 database).