1998 Senate · NY
Zogby Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-15 (19 days before the election) · 706 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 37% · Republican 42%
R+5.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.82% · Republican 33.67%
D+14.2
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 37 − 42 = -5.00
- Actual margin = 47.823 − 33.672 = 14.151
- Signed miss = -5.00 − (14.151) = -19.151
- Absolute miss = |-19.151| = 19.151
The poll overstated the Republican by 19.2 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 26285, race ID 1738 (538 database).