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1998 Governor · MD

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 911 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 55%

R+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.14% · Republican 44.82%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 55 = -13.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.142 − 44.816 = 10.326
  3. Signed miss = -13.00 − (10.326) = -23.327
  4. Absolute miss = |-23.327| = 23.327

The poll overstated the Republican by 23.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54324, race ID 1447 (538 database).