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2002 Senate · NH

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2002-11-03 (2 days before the election) · 679 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 47.3% · Republican 45.5%

D+1.8

The certified result

Democrat 46.40% · Republican 50.82%

R+4.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47.3 − 45.5 = 1.80
  2. Actual margin = 46.402 − 50.819 = -4.417
  3. Signed miss = 1.80 − (-4.417) = 6.217
  4. Absolute miss = |6.217| = 6.217

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.2 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73210, race ID 1669 (538 database).