Skip to content

2000 Senate · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-10-29 (9 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 53%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.68% · Republican 52.26%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 53 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.680 − 52.255 = -4.575
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-4.575) = -2.425
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.425| = 2.425

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73387, race ID 1712 (538 database).