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2002 Senate · AR

Opinion Research Associates · fieldwork ended 2002-10-25 (11 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 43%

D+8.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.90% · Republican 46.10%

D+7.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 43 = 8.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.896 − 46.104 = 7.792
  3. Signed miss = 8.00 − (7.792) = 0.209
  4. Absolute miss = |0.209| = 0.209

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25559, race ID 1650 (538 database).