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1998 Senate · NY

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-31 (3 days before the election) · 1,196 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46.5% · Republican 47.3%

R+0.8

The certified result

Democrat 47.82% · Republican 33.67%

D+14.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46.5 − 47.3 = -0.80
  2. Actual margin = 47.823 − 33.672 = 14.151
  3. Signed miss = -0.80 − (14.151) = -14.951
  4. Absolute miss = |-14.951| = 14.951

The poll overstated the Republican by 15.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26275, race ID 1738 (538 database).