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2010 Governor · CA

WPA Intelligence · fieldwork ended 2010-10-13 (20 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 45%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.77% · Republican 40.88%

D+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 45 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.770 − 40.885 = 12.885
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (12.885) = -13.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-13.885| = 13.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 13.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32594, race ID 1278 (538 database).