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2018 Governor · SD

Emerson College · fieldwork ended 2018-11-03 (3 days before the election) · 514 respondents · IVR/Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 46.6% · Republican 47.6%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.60% · Republican 50.97%

R+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.6 − 47.6 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.597 − 50.974 = -3.377
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-3.377) = 2.378
  4. Absolute miss = |2.378| = 2.378

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 56781, race ID 161 (538 database).