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2002 Senate · IL

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-22 (14 days before the election) · 528 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 36%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 60.33% · Republican 38.02%

D+22.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 36 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 60.334 − 38.020 = 22.314
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (22.314) = -2.314
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.314| = 2.314

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54694, race ID 1655 (538 database).