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1999 Governor · MS

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 1999-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 605 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 47%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 49.62% · Republican 48.52%

D+1.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 47 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 49.616 − 48.524 = 1.092
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (1.092) = -6.092
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.092| = 6.092

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.1 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63944, race ID 1432 (538 database).