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1998 Governor · MA

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 907 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 56%

R+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.38% · Republican 50.81%

R+3.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 56 = -20.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.382 − 50.814 = -3.432
  3. Signed miss = -20.00 − (-3.432) = -16.568
  4. Absolute miss = |-16.568| = 16.568

The poll overstated the Republican by 16.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54306, race ID 1448 (538 database).