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2002 Governor · PA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-20 (16 days before the election) · 668 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 37%

D+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.41% · Republican 44.37%

D+9.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 37 = 18.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.413 − 44.372 = 9.041
  3. Signed miss = 18.00 − (9.041) = 8.960
  4. Absolute miss = |8.960| = 8.960

The poll overstated the Democrat by 9.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54909, race ID 1408 (538 database).