2006 House · VA-2
Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2006-10-23 (15 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 44% · Republican 46%
R+2.0
The certified result
Democrat 48.45% · Republican 51.27%
R+2.8
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 44 − 46 = -2.00
- Actual margin = 48.453 − 51.269 = -2.816
- Signed miss = -2.00 − (-2.816) = 0.816
- Absolute miss = |0.816| = 0.816
The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.8 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64128, race ID 3995 (538 database).