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1998 Senate · CA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 809 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 43%

D+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.06% · Republican 43.01%

D+10.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 43 = 2.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.057 − 43.012 = 10.045
  3. Signed miss = 2.00 − (10.045) = -8.046
  4. Absolute miss = |-8.046| = 8.046

The poll overstated the Republican by 8.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26103, race ID 1721 (538 database).