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2006 House · VA-5

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2006-10-31 (7 days before the election) · 530 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 61%

R+26.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.93% · Republican 59.12%

R+19.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 61 = -26.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.929 − 59.115 = -19.186
  3. Signed miss = -26.00 − (-19.186) = -6.815
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.815| = 6.815

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64314, race ID 3998 (538 database).