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2002 Governor · SC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-19 (17 days before the election) · 764 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 46%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.05% · Republican 52.85%

R+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 46 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.046 − 52.849 = -5.803
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (-5.803) = 10.803
  4. Absolute miss = |10.803| = 10.803

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 54930, race ID 1410 (538 database).