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1998 Governor · PA

Harris Insights & Analytics · fieldwork ended 1998-10-20 (14 days before the election) · 1,611 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 16% · Republican 64%

R+48.0

The certified result

Democrat 31.03% · Republican 57.42%

R+26.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 16 − 64 = -48.00
  2. Actual margin = 31.033 − 57.417 = -26.384
  3. Signed miss = -48.00 − (-26.384) = -21.616
  4. Absolute miss = |-21.616| = 21.616

The poll overstated the Republican by 21.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54406, race ID 1459 (538 database).