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1998 Senate · IL

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 1,209 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 52%

R+14.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.44% · Republican 50.35%

R+2.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 52 = -14.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.444 − 50.347 = -2.903
  3. Signed miss = -14.00 − (-2.903) = -11.097
  4. Absolute miss = |-11.097| = 11.097

The poll overstated the Republican by 11.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54293, race ID 1728 (538 database).