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2000 Senate · MI

Mitchell Research & Communications · fieldwork ended 2000-10-30 (8 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 40%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.48% · Republican 47.86%

D+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 40 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.475 − 47.861 = 1.614
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (1.614) = -3.614
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.614| = 3.614

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25816, race ID 1694 (538 database).