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2008 Senate · MN

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-31 (4 days before the election) · 669 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 44%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 41.98%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 44 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.994 − 41.983 = 0.011
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (0.011) = -5.011
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.011| = 5.011

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16446, race ID 1561 (538 database).