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2017 Governor · VA

Trafalgar Group · fieldwork ended 2017-11-01 (6 days before the election) · 1,200 respondents · IVR/Email · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 49.34% · Republican 47.55%

D+1.8

The certified result

Democrat 53.89% · Republican 44.98%

D+8.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49.34 − 47.55 = 1.79
  2. Actual margin = 53.894 − 44.977 = 8.917
  3. Signed miss = 1.79 − (8.917) = -7.127
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.127| = 7.127

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 50522, race ID 1214 (538 database).