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2002 Senate · NH

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2002-10-26 (10 days before the election) · 648 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 42%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.40% · Republican 50.82%

R+4.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 42 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.402 − 50.819 = -4.417
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (-4.417) = 8.417
  4. Absolute miss = |8.417| = 8.417

The poll overstated the Democrat by 8.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25651, race ID 1669 (538 database).