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1998 Senate · FL

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 822 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 59% · Republican 31%

D+28.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.47% · Republican 37.53%

D+24.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 59 − 31 = 28.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.469 − 37.531 = 24.938
  3. Signed miss = 28.00 − (24.938) = 3.061
  4. Absolute miss = |3.061| = 3.061

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54252, race ID 1724 (538 database).