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2009 Governor · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2009-10-13 (21 days before the election) · 611 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 40%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.88% · Republican 48.46%

R+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 40 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.879 − 48.457 = -3.578
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-3.578) = 2.578
  4. Absolute miss = |2.578| = 2.578

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63785, race ID 1311 (538 database).