Skip to content

2006 Senate · VA

Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2006-10-25 (13 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 50%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.59% · Republican 49.20%

D+0.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 50 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.594 − 49.201 = 0.393
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (0.393) = -2.394
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.394| = 2.394

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24640, race ID 1609 (538 database).