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1998 Governor · MD

ABC News/The Washington Post · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 919 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 44%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.14% · Republican 44.82%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 44 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.142 − 44.816 = 10.326
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (10.326) = -5.327
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.327| = 5.327

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54323, race ID 1447 (538 database).