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1998 Senate · WA

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 831 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 54% · Republican 41%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 58.41% · Republican 41.59%

D+16.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 54 − 41 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 58.414 − 41.586 = 16.828
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (16.828) = -3.828
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.828| = 3.828

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63650, race ID 1749 (538 database).