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2006 Governor · IL

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2006-10-30 (8 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 40%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.80% · Republican 39.26%

D+10.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 40 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.795 − 39.261 = 10.534
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (10.534) = -6.535
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.535| = 6.535

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 55363, race ID 1339 (538 database).