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2006 House · PA-8

Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2006-10-21 (17 days before the election) · 336 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 48%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.30% · Republican 49.69%

D+0.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 48 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.299 − 49.692 = 0.607
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (0.607) = -9.608
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.608| = 9.608

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64047, race ID 3928 (538 database).