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2002 Senate · IL

Richard Day Research · fieldwork ended 2002-10-20 (16 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 33%

D+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.33% · Republican 38.02%

D+22.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 33 = 21.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.334 − 38.020 = 22.314
  3. Signed miss = 21.00 − (22.314) = -1.314
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.314| = 1.314

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25597, race ID 1655 (538 database).