1998 Senate · IL
Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-30 (4 days before the election) · 847 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 39% · Republican 58%
R+19.0
The certified result
Democrat 47.44% · Republican 50.35%
R+2.9
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 39 − 58 = -19.00
- Actual margin = 47.444 − 50.347 = -2.903
- Signed miss = -19.00 − (-2.903) = -16.097
- Absolute miss = |-16.097| = 16.097
The poll overstated the Republican by 16.1 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54298, race ID 1728 (538 database).