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2000 President · IL

Opinion Dynamics · fieldwork ended 2000-10-25 (13 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 45%

R+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 54.60% · Republican 42.59%

D+12.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 45 = -3.00
  2. Actual margin = 54.597 − 42.585 = 12.012
  3. Signed miss = -3.00 − (12.012) = -15.012
  4. Absolute miss = |-15.012| = 15.012

The poll overstated the Republican by 15.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 6344, race ID 820 (538 database).