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2009 Governor · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2009-10-18 (16 days before the election) · 595 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 59%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.26% · Republican 58.62%

R+17.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 59 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.255 − 58.619 = -17.364
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-17.364) = -1.636
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.636| = 1.636

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63789, race ID 1312 (538 database).