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2000 Senate · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-10-24 (14 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 42%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.11% · Republican 47.10%

D+3.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 42 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.113 − 47.096 = 3.017
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (3.017) = 4.983
  4. Absolute miss = |4.983| = 4.983

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63733, race ID 1701 (538 database).