2002 Senate · NJ
CBS News/The New York Times · fieldwork ended 2002-10-21 (15 days before the election) · 746 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 52% · Republican 39%
D+13.0
The certified result
Democrat 53.88% · Republican 43.95%
D+9.9
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 52 − 39 = 13.00
- Actual margin = 53.876 − 43.948 = 9.928
- Signed miss = 13.00 − (9.928) = 3.071
- Absolute miss = |3.071| = 3.071
The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.1 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25642, race ID 1670 (538 database).