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2021 Governor · VA

Targoz Market Research · fieldwork ended 2021-10-29 (4 days before the election) · 747 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.64% · Republican 50.57%

R+1.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.644 − 50.574 = -1.930
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.930) = 4.930
  4. Absolute miss = |4.930| = 4.930

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.9 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 77163, race ID 8989 (538 database).