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1998 Senate · OH

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-30 (4 days before the election) · 2,149 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 58%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 43.53% · Republican 56.46%

R+12.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 58 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 43.534 − 56.460 = -12.926
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-12.926) = -6.074
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.074| = 6.074

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54398, race ID 1741 (538 database).