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2002 Senate · NJ

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2002-10-22 (14 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 40%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.88% · Republican 43.95%

D+9.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 40 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.876 − 43.948 = 9.928
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (9.928) = -2.929
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.929| = 2.929

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25531, race ID 1670 (538 database).