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2002 Senate · TX

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-31 (5 days before the election) · 683 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 53%

R+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.33% · Republican 55.30%

R+12.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 53 = -8.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.326 − 55.300 = -11.974
  3. Signed miss = -8.00 − (-11.974) = 3.973
  4. Absolute miss = |3.973| = 3.973

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54973, race ID 1679 (538 database).