Skip to content

2021 Governor · VA

Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2021-10-23 (10 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45.6% · Republican 45.2%

D+0.4

The certified result

Democrat 48.64% · Republican 50.57%

R+1.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45.6 − 45.2 = 0.40
  2. Actual margin = 48.644 − 50.574 = -1.930
  3. Signed miss = 0.40 − (-1.930) = 2.330
  4. Absolute miss = |2.330| = 2.330

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77036, race ID 8989 (538 database).