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2000 Senate · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-11-04 (3 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 54%

R+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.68% · Republican 52.26%

R+4.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 54 = -10.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.680 − 52.255 = -4.575
  3. Signed miss = -10.00 − (-4.575) = -5.425
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.425| = 5.425

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63752, race ID 1712 (538 database).