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2010 Governor · CA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2010-10-17 (16 days before the election) · 621 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 40%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.77% · Republican 40.88%

D+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 40 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.770 − 40.885 = 12.885
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (12.885) = -5.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.885| = 5.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32606, race ID 1278 (538 database).