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2002 Senate · SC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-19 (17 days before the election) · 764 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 53%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.19% · Republican 54.40%

R+10.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 53 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.188 − 54.402 = -10.214
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-10.214) = 1.214
  4. Absolute miss = |1.214| = 1.214

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54930, race ID 1676 (538 database).