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2000 Senate · MI

Mitchell Research & Communications · fieldwork ended 2000-10-24 (14 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 39%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.48% · Republican 47.86%

D+1.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 39 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.475 − 47.861 = 1.614
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (1.614) = -4.614
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.614| = 4.614

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 6388, race ID 1694 (538 database).