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1998 Senate · KY

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 823 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 45%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.16% · Republican 49.75%

R+0.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 45 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.157 − 49.748 = -0.591
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (-0.591) = 1.591
  4. Absolute miss = |1.591| = 1.591

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26140, race ID 1732 (538 database).