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2002 Governor · MA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2002-11-03 (2 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 41%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.94% · Republican 49.77%

R+4.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 41 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.936 − 49.767 = -4.831
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (-4.831) = 1.831
  4. Absolute miss = |1.831| = 1.831

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54735, race ID 1397 (538 database).