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2009 Governor · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2009-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 674 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 41%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.88% · Republican 48.46%

R+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 41 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.879 − 48.457 = -3.578
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-3.578) = 1.578
  4. Absolute miss = |1.578| = 1.578

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63786, race ID 1311 (538 database).