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1998 House · PA-13

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-25 (9 days before the election) · 300 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 48%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.55% · Republican 46.57%

D+5.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 48 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.550 − 46.569 = 4.981
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (4.981) = -10.981
  4. Absolute miss = |-10.981| = 10.981

The poll overstated the Republican by 11.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64405, race ID 2188 (538 database).