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1998 Senate · CO

Ciruli Associates · fieldwork ended 1998-10-21 (13 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 30% · Republican 61%

R+31.0

The certified result

Democrat 35.02% · Republican 62.49%

R+27.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 30 − 61 = -31.00
  2. Actual margin = 35.017 − 62.489 = -27.472
  3. Signed miss = -31.00 − (-27.472) = -3.528
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.528| = 3.528

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26017, race ID 1722 (538 database).