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2005 Governor · VA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2005-11-03 (5 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 44%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.72% · Republican 45.99%

D+5.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 44 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.717 − 45.989 = 5.728
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (5.728) = -4.727
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.727| = 4.727

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63951, race ID 1364 (538 database).