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1998 Senate · GA

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 1,174 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 37% · Republican 53%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.15% · Republican 52.37%

R+7.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 37 − 53 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.150 − 52.370 = -7.220
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-7.220) = -8.780
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.780| = 8.780

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54259, race ID 1725 (538 database).