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1998 Senate · OH

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 815 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 37% · Republican 55%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.53% · Republican 56.46%

R+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 37 − 55 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.534 − 56.460 = -12.926
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-12.926) = -5.074
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.074| = 5.074

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26167, race ID 1741 (538 database).