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2006 Senate · MD

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 2006-10-24 (14 days before the election) · 1,003 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 43%

D+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.21% · Republican 44.20%

D+10.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 43 = 11.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.206 − 44.195 = 10.011
  3. Signed miss = 11.00 − (10.011) = 0.990
  4. Absolute miss = |0.990| = 0.990

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24875, race ID 1589 (538 database).