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2002 Senate · IA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-28 (8 days before the election) · 605 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 60% · Republican 38%

D+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.18% · Republican 43.78%

D+10.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 60 − 38 = 22.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.178 − 43.779 = 10.399
  3. Signed miss = 22.00 − (10.399) = 11.601
  4. Absolute miss = |11.601| = 11.601

The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54668, race ID 1656 (538 database).