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2001 Governor · VA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2001-10-16 (21 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 42%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.16% · Republican 47.02%

D+5.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 42 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.163 − 47.025 = 5.138
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (5.138) = -2.138
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.138| = 2.138

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63945, race ID 1418 (538 database).