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2002 Governor · SD

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 805 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 55%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.92% · Republican 56.77%

R+14.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 55 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.925 − 56.767 = -14.842
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-14.842) = -4.157
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.157| = 4.157

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25536, race ID 1411 (538 database).