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2002 Governor · VT

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2002-10-31 (5 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 36%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.39% · Republican 44.94%

R+2.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 36 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.390 − 44.941 = -2.551
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (-2.551) = 12.551
  4. Absolute miss = |12.551| = 12.551

The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54981, race ID 1414 (538 database).