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1998 Governor · IL

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-25 (9 days before the election) · 813 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 37% · Republican 48%

R+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.46% · Republican 51.03%

R+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 37 − 48 = -11.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.464 − 51.034 = -3.570
  3. Signed miss = -11.00 − (-3.570) = -7.430
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.430| = 7.430

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26126, race ID 1443 (538 database).