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2010 Governor · CA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2010-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 594 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 38%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.77% · Republican 40.88%

D+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 38 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.770 − 40.885 = 12.885
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (12.885) = -4.885
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.885| = 4.885

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 32686, race ID 1278 (538 database).