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1998 Governor · RI

KRC Research · fieldwork ended 1998-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 40%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.13% · Republican 50.97%

R+8.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 40 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.130 − 50.965 = -8.835
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (-8.835) = 13.835
  4. Absolute miss = |13.835| = 13.835

The poll overstated the Democrat by 13.8 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54413, race ID 1460 (538 database).