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2002 Governor · CA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 563 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 37%

D+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.26% · Republican 42.40%

D+4.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 37 = 11.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.262 − 42.398 = 4.864
  3. Signed miss = 11.00 − (4.864) = 6.135
  4. Absolute miss = |6.135| = 6.135

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54594, race ID 1385 (538 database).