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2002 Senate · SD

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2002-11-03 (2 days before the election) · 679 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 47.4% · Republican 47.5%

R+0.1

The certified result

Democrat 49.62% · Republican 49.47%

D+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.4 − 47.5 = -0.10
  2. Actual margin = 49.624 − 49.466 = 0.158
  3. Signed miss = -0.10 − (0.158) = -0.258
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.258| = 0.258

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.3 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73211, race ID 1677 (538 database).