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2006 Governor · MD

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2006-10-25 (13 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 46%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.69% · Republican 46.16%

D+6.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 46 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.691 − 46.159 = 6.532
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (6.532) = -7.532
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.532| = 7.532

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 55438, race ID 1342 (538 database).