Skip to content

2006 Governor · AL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2006-10-30 (8 days before the election) · 602 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 54%

R+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.57% · Republican 57.45%

R+15.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 54 = -15.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.573 − 57.448 = -15.875
  3. Signed miss = -15.00 − (-15.875) = 0.875
  4. Absolute miss = |0.875| = 0.875

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 55116, race ID 1328 (538 database).