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2001 Governor · VA

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 2001-10-24 (13 days before the election) · 1,010 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 41%

D+10.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.16% · Republican 47.02%

D+5.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 41 = 10.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.163 − 47.025 = 5.138
  3. Signed miss = 10.00 − (5.138) = 4.862
  4. Absolute miss = |4.862| = 4.862

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63909, race ID 1418 (538 database).