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1998 Governor · IA

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 1998-10-29 (5 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 47%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.30% · Republican 46.51%

D+5.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 47 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.303 − 46.506 = 5.797
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (5.797) = -9.797
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.797| = 9.797

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54277, race ID 1444 (538 database).