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2018 House · VA-2

The New York Times/Siena College · fieldwork ended 2018-10-20 (17 days before the election) · 508 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42.36% · Republican 45.12%

R+2.8

The certified result

Democrat 51.05% · Republican 48.81%

D+2.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42.36 − 45.12 = -2.76
  2. Actual margin = 51.050 − 48.814 = 2.236
  3. Signed miss = -2.76 − (2.236) = -4.996
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.996| = 4.996

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56321, race ID 569 (538 database).