2002 Governor · IA
SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-21 (15 days before the election) · 614 respondents · IVR
The poll said
Democrat 55% · Republican 41%
D+14.0
The certified result
Democrat 52.69% · Republican 44.51%
D+8.2
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 55 − 41 = 14.00
- Actual margin = 52.686 − 44.513 = 8.173
- Signed miss = 14.00 − (8.173) = 5.827
- Absolute miss = |5.827| = 5.827
The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.8 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54667, race ID 1393 (538 database).