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2021 Governor · VA

Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research · fieldwork ended 2021-10-12 (21 days before the election) · 726 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 46%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.64% · Republican 50.57%

R+1.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 46 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.644 − 50.574 = -1.930
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (-1.930) = 6.930
  4. Absolute miss = |6.930| = 6.930

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 76809, race ID 8989 (538 database).