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1998 Senate · MD

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 911 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 67% · Republican 27%

D+40.0

The certified result

Democrat 70.50% · Republican 29.50%

D+41.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 67 − 27 = 40.00
  2. Actual margin = 70.504 − 29.496 = 41.008
  3. Signed miss = 40.00 − (41.008) = -1.008
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.008| = 1.008

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54324, race ID 1734 (538 database).