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2006 Senate · VA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2006-10-18 (20 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 47%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.59% · Republican 49.20%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 47 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.594 − 49.201 = 0.393
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (0.393) = -4.394
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.394| = 4.394

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24368, race ID 1609 (538 database).