2002 House · LA-5
Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2002-12-02 (5 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 40% · Republican 48%
R+8.0
The certified result
Democrat 50.28% · Republican 49.72%
D+0.6
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 40 − 48 = -8.00
- Actual margin = 50.282 − 49.718 = 0.564
- Signed miss = -8.00 − (0.564) = -8.565
- Absolute miss = |-8.565| = 8.565
The poll overstated the Republican by 8.6 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 74304, race ID 2893 (538 database).