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2021 Governor · VA

Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research · fieldwork ended 2021-10-26 (7 days before the election) · 1,015 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 53%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.64% · Republican 50.57%

R+1.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 53 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.644 − 50.574 = -1.930
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-1.930) = -6.070
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.070| = 6.070

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77137, race ID 8989 (538 database).