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1998 Senate · NY

Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 703 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 43%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.82% · Republican 33.67%

D+14.2

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 43 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.823 − 33.672 = 14.151
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (14.151) = -18.151
  4. Absolute miss = |-18.151| = 18.151

The poll overstated the Republican by 18.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26283, race ID 1738 (538 database).