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2008 Senate · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 682 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 43%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.65% · Republican 44.18%

D+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 43 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.653 − 44.184 = 8.469
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (8.469) = -1.469
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.469| = 1.469

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16435, race ID 1569 (538 database).