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2002 Senate · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2002-10-21 (15 days before the election) · 679 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 40%

D+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 53.88% · Republican 43.95%

D+9.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 40 = 11.00
  2. Actual margin = 53.876 − 43.948 = 9.928
  3. Signed miss = 11.00 − (9.928) = 1.071
  4. Absolute miss = |1.071| = 1.071

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 73400, race ID 1670 (538 database).