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2002 Senate · MO

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2002-11-03 (2 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 50%

R+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.67% · Republican 49.80%

R+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 50 = -7.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.667 − 49.799 = -1.132
  3. Signed miss = -7.00 − (-1.132) = -5.868
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.868| = 5.868

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25676, race ID 1666 (538 database).