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2002 Senate · SD

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2002-10-28 (8 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 48%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.62% · Republican 49.47%

D+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 48 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.624 − 49.466 = 0.158
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (0.158) = -3.158
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.158| = 3.158

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25567, race ID 1677 (538 database).