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1998 House · NC-2

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 1998-10-26 (8 days before the election) · 500 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 39%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 57.39% · Republican 41.67%

D+15.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 39 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 57.394 − 41.666 = 15.728
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (15.728) = -2.727
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.727| = 2.727

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64261, race ID 2134 (538 database).