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2002 Senate · MO

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-16 (20 days before the election) · 958 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 47%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 48.67% · Republican 49.80%

R+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 47 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 48.667 − 49.799 = -1.132
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (-1.132) = 4.132
  4. Absolute miss = |4.132| = 4.132

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63777, race ID 1666 (538 database).