2005 Governor · VA
Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports) · fieldwork ended 2005-10-24 (15 days before the election) · 666 respondents · IVR
The poll said
Democrat 46% · Republican 48%
R+2.0
The certified result
Democrat 51.72% · Republican 45.99%
D+5.7
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 46 − 48 = -2.00
- Actual margin = 51.717 − 45.989 = 5.728
- Signed miss = -2.00 − (5.728) = -7.727
- Absolute miss = |-7.727| = 7.727
The poll overstated the Republican by 7.7 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73737, race ID 1364 (538 database).