1998 Senate · PA
Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 1,611 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 25% · Republican 57%
R+32.0
The certified result
Democrat 34.79% · Republican 61.34%
R+26.6
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 25 − 57 = -32.00
- Actual margin = 34.787 − 61.342 = -26.555
- Signed miss = -32.00 − (-26.555) = -5.446
- Absolute miss = |-5.446| = 5.446
The poll overstated the Republican by 5.4 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54406, race ID 1744 (538 database).