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2006 Governor · MD

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2006-11-04 (3 days before the election) · 663 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.69% · Republican 46.16%

D+6.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.691 − 46.159 = 6.532
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (6.532) = -3.532
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.532| = 3.532

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24818, race ID 1342 (538 database).