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2002 Governor · MD

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 797 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 48%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.67% · Republican 51.55%

R+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 48 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.675 − 51.553 = -3.878
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-3.878) = 4.878
  4. Absolute miss = |4.878| = 4.878

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54752, race ID 1396 (538 database).