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2006 House · CA-4

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2006-11-01 (6 days before the election) · 647 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 50%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.87% · Republican 49.05%

R+3.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 50 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.866 − 49.051 = -3.185
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-3.185) = -3.815
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.815| = 3.815

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64315, race ID 3613 (538 database).