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2000 Senate · PA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2000-11-01 (6 days before the election) · 800 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 41% · Republican 57%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 45.51% · Republican 52.42%

R+6.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 41 − 57 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 45.509 − 52.416 = -6.907
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-6.907) = -9.093
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.093| = 9.093

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63749, race ID 1706 (538 database).