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1998 Governor · NY

CBS News/The New York Times · fieldwork ended 1998-10-23 (11 days before the election) · 639 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 21% · Republican 56%

R+35.0

The certified result

Democrat 30.47% · Republican 44.59%

R+14.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 21 − 56 = -35.00
  2. Actual margin = 30.466 − 44.591 = -14.125
  3. Signed miss = -35.00 − (-14.125) = -20.875
  4. Absolute miss = |-20.875| = 20.875

The poll overstated the Republican by 20.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26240, race ID 1455 (538 database).