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2000 Senate · NJ

Tarrance Group · fieldwork ended 2000-10-31 (7 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 44%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.11% · Republican 47.10%

D+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 44 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.113 − 47.096 = 3.017
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (3.017) = -7.017
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.017| = 7.017

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25887, race ID 1701 (538 database).