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2009 Governor · VA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2009-10-18 (16 days before the election) · 666 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 52%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.26% · Republican 58.62%

R+17.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 52 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.255 − 58.619 = -17.364
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (-17.364) = 5.364
  4. Absolute miss = |5.364| = 5.364

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63958, race ID 1312 (538 database).