2006 Senate · MD
SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2006-11-04 (3 days before the election) · 663 respondents · IVR
The poll said
Democrat 49% · Republican 46%
D+3.0
The certified result
Democrat 54.21% · Republican 44.20%
D+10.0
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 49 − 46 = 3.00
- Actual margin = 54.206 − 44.195 = 10.011
- Signed miss = 3.00 − (10.011) = -7.010
- 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 24818, race ID 1589 (538 database).