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1998 Senate · GA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 809 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 51%

R+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.15% · Republican 52.37%

R+7.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 51 = -13.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.150 − 52.370 = -7.220
  3. Signed miss = -13.00 − (-7.220) = -5.780
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.780| = 5.780

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26118, race ID 1725 (538 database).