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2009 Governor · NJ

Fairleigh Dickinson University · fieldwork ended 2009-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 1,119 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 41%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.88% · Republican 48.46%

R+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 41 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.879 − 48.457 = -3.578
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-3.578) = 5.578
  4. Absolute miss = |5.578| = 5.578

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73540, race ID 1311 (538 database).