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2006 Senate · MD

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2006-11-02 (5 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 44%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.21% · Republican 44.20%

D+10.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 44 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.206 − 44.195 = 10.011
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (10.011) = -7.010
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.010| = 7.010

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24332, race ID 1589 (538 database).