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2002 Governor · RI

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-15 (21 days before the election) · 593 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 45%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.24% · Republican 54.76%

R+9.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 45 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.242 − 54.758 = -9.516
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-9.516) = 12.516
  4. Absolute miss = |12.516| = 12.516

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54917, race ID 1409 (538 database).