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2002 Governor · SC

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2002-10-15 (21 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 45%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.05% · Republican 52.85%

R+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 45 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.046 − 52.849 = -5.803
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-5.803) = 1.803
  4. Absolute miss = |1.803| = 1.803

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25534, race ID 1410 (538 database).