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2002 Governor · SC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-11-02 (3 days before the election) · 764 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 46%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.05% · Republican 52.85%

R+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 46 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.046 − 52.849 = -5.803
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (-5.803) = 11.803
  4. Absolute miss = |11.803| = 11.803

The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54933, race ID 1410 (538 database).