Skip to content

2002 Governor · SC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 764 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.05% · Republican 52.85%

R+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.046 − 52.849 = -5.803
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-5.803) = 8.803
  4. Absolute miss = |8.803| = 8.803

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54931, race ID 1410 (538 database).