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2002 Senate · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-29 (7 days before the election) · 611 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 50%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 44.95% · Republican 53.56%

R+8.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 50 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 44.955 − 53.564 = -8.609
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (-8.609) = 4.609
  4. Absolute miss = |4.609| = 4.609

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63793, race ID 1672 (538 database).