1998 Senate · IL
Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-28 (6 days before the election) · 703 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 45% · Republican 42%
D+3.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.44% · Republican 50.35%
R+2.9
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 45 − 42 = 3.00
- Actual margin = 47.444 − 50.347 = -2.903
- Signed miss = 3.00 − (-2.903) = 5.903
- Absolute miss = |5.903| = 5.903
The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.9 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26271, race ID 1728 (538 database).