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1998 Senate · WI

FM3 Research · fieldwork ended 1998-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 599 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 43%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.55% · Republican 48.40%

D+2.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 43 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.548 − 48.402 = 2.146
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (2.146) = -1.146
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.146| = 1.146

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26032, race ID 1750 (538 database).