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1998 Senate · WI

St. Norbert College Strategic Research Institute · fieldwork ended 1998-10-14 (20 days before the election) · 415 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 40%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 50.55% · Republican 48.40%

D+2.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 40 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 50.548 − 48.402 = 2.146
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (2.146) = 4.854
  4. Absolute miss = |4.854| = 4.854

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26233, race ID 1750 (538 database).