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2003 Governor · CA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2003-10-05 (2 days before the election) · 294 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 34% · Republican 46%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 31.47% · Republican 48.58%

R+17.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 34 − 46 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 31.473 − 48.583 = -17.110
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (-17.110) = 5.110
  4. Absolute miss = |5.110| = 5.110

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63771, race ID 1380 (538 database).