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1998 Senate · OH

Columbus Dispatch · fieldwork ended 1998-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Mail

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 51%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.53% · Republican 56.46%

R+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 51 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.534 − 56.460 = -12.926
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-12.926) = 10.926
  4. Absolute miss = |10.926| = 10.926

The poll overstated the Democrat by 10.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54397, race ID 1741 (538 database).