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2021 Governor · VA

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2021-10-22 (11 days before the election) · 875 respondents · IVR/Online Panel/Text-to-Web

The poll said

Democrat 49.4% · Republican 48.5%

D+0.9

The certified result

Democrat 48.64% · Republican 50.57%

R+1.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49.4 − 48.5 = 0.90
  2. Actual margin = 48.644 − 50.574 = -1.930
  3. Signed miss = 0.90 − (-1.930) = 2.830
  4. Absolute miss = |2.830| = 2.830

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77035, race ID 8989 (538 database).