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2002 Senate · IA

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 2002-10-31 (5 days before the election) · 807 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 41%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.18% · Republican 43.78%

D+10.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 41 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.178 − 43.779 = 10.399
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (10.399) = -1.399
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.399| = 1.399

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25613, race ID 1656 (538 database).