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2005 Governor · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2005-11-06 (2 days before the election) · 804 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 45%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.72% · Republican 45.99%

D+5.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 45 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.717 − 45.989 = 5.728
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (5.728) = -0.727
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.727| = 0.727

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73731, race ID 1364 (538 database).