2000 Senate · MT
Montana State University Billings · fieldwork ended 2000-10-21 (17 days before the election) · 403 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 43% · Republican 41%
D+2.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.24% · Republican 50.55%
R+3.3
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 43 − 41 = 2.00
- Actual margin = 47.237 − 50.554 = -3.317
- Signed miss = 2.00 − (-3.317) = 5.317
- Absolute miss = |5.317| = 5.317
The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.3 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 25829, race ID 1698 (538 database).