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2006 House · PA-4

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2006-10-23 (15 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM,REP)

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 50%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.89% · Republican 48.03%

D+3.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 50 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.891 − 48.035 = 3.856
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (3.856) = -15.856
  4. Absolute miss = |-15.856| = 15.856

The poll overstated the Republican by 15.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64176, race ID 3924 (538 database).