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2017 Governor · VA

The Washington Post/George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government · fieldwork ended 2017-10-28 (10 days before the election) · 921 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 44%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.89% · Republican 44.98%

D+8.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 44 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.894 − 44.977 = 8.917
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (8.917) = -3.917
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.917| = 3.917

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 50529, race ID 1214 (538 database).