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2002 Senate · SD

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 2002-11-03 (2 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 48%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.62% · Republican 49.47%

D+0.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 48 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.624 − 49.466 = 0.158
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (0.158) = -4.158
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.158| = 4.158

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25689, race ID 1677 (538 database).