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1998 Governor · MD

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1998-10-27 (7 days before the election) · 828 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 45%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 55.14% · Republican 44.82%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 45 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 55.142 − 44.816 = 10.326
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (10.326) = -6.327
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.327| = 6.327

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54326, race ID 1447 (538 database).