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1998 Senate · NY

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 808 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 43%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.82% · Republican 33.67%

D+14.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 43 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.823 − 33.672 = 14.151
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (14.151) = -11.151
  4. Absolute miss = |-11.151| = 11.151

The poll overstated the Republican by 11.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26162, race ID 1738 (538 database).