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1998 House · ND-1

WPA Intelligence · fieldwork ended 1998-10-18 (16 days before the election) · 300 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 40%

D+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.21% · Republican 41.11%

D+15.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 40 = 9.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.212 − 41.107 = 15.105
  3. Signed miss = 9.00 − (15.105) = -6.105
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.105| = 6.105

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64392, race ID 2145 (538 database).