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2007 House · MA-5

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2007-10-09 (7 days before the election) · 457 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 42%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.04% · Republican 44.87%

D+6.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 42 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.040 − 44.867 = 6.173
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (6.173) = 2.826
  4. Absolute miss = |2.826| = 2.826

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73718, race ID 1815 (538 database).