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2021 Governor · VA

The Washington Post/George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government · fieldwork ended 2021-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 918 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 48%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.64% · Republican 50.57%

R+1.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 48 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.644 − 50.574 = -1.930
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-1.930) = 2.930
  4. Absolute miss = |2.930| = 2.930

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77140, race ID 8989 (538 database).