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2002 Senate · MN

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 43%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.34% · Republican 49.53%

R+2.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 43 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.336 − 49.529 = -2.193
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (-2.193) = 4.193
  4. Absolute miss = |4.193| = 4.193

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25565, race ID 1664 (538 database).