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2002 Senate · NJ

Fairleigh Dickinson University · fieldwork ended 2002-10-31 (5 days before the election) · 921 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 38%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.88% · Republican 43.95%

D+9.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 38 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.876 − 43.948 = 9.928
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (9.928) = -0.929
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.929| = 0.929

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25460, race ID 1670 (538 database).