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2006 Senate · MT

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2006-10-18 (20 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 43%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.16% · Republican 48.29%

D+0.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 43 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.162 − 48.286 = 0.876
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (0.876) = 2.124
  4. Absolute miss = |2.124| = 2.124

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24341, race ID 1595 (538 database).