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1998 Governor · IL

Richard Day Research · fieldwork ended 1998-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 712 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 56%

R+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.46% · Republican 51.03%

R+3.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 56 = -21.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.464 − 51.034 = -3.570
  3. Signed miss = -21.00 − (-3.570) = -17.430
  4. Absolute miss = |-17.430| = 17.430

The poll overstated the Republican by 17.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26223, race ID 1443 (538 database).