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1998 Governor · GA

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

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 46%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.49% · Republican 44.08%

D+8.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 46 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.492 − 44.076 = 8.416
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (8.416) = -11.416
  4. Absolute miss = |-11.416| = 11.416

The poll overstated the Republican by 11.4 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26118, race ID 1440 (538 database).