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2002 Governor · MA

RKM Research and Communications Inc. · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 465 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 38%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.94% · Republican 49.77%

R+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 38 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.936 − 49.767 = -4.831
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (-4.831) = 10.831
  4. Absolute miss = |10.831| = 10.831

The poll overstated the Democrat by 10.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54731, race ID 1397 (538 database).