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1998 Senate · NY

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 1998-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 43%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.82% · Republican 33.67%

D+14.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 43 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.823 − 33.672 = 14.151
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (14.151) = -9.151
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.151| = 9.151

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63761, race ID 1738 (538 database).