Skip to content

2018 Governor · MA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2018-10-26 (11 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 26% · Republican 65.4%

R+39.4

The certified result

Democrat 33.12% · Republican 66.60%

R+33.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 26 − 65.4 = -39.40
  2. Actual margin = 33.118 − 66.602 = -33.484
  3. Signed miss = -39.40 − (-33.484) = -5.916
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.916| = 5.916

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56512, race ID 147 (538 database).