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1998 Governor · MN

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-24 (10 days before the election) · 816 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 34% · Republican 33%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 28.08% · Republican 34.29%

R+6.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 34 − 33 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 28.082 − 34.292 = -6.210
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-6.210) = 7.210
  4. Absolute miss = |7.210| = 7.210

The poll overstated the Democrat by 7.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54343, race ID 1450 (538 database).