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2008 Senate · IA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 795 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 56% · Republican 36%

D+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.66% · Republican 37.26%

D+25.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 56 − 36 = 20.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.656 − 37.261 = 25.395
  3. Signed miss = 20.00 − (25.395) = -5.395
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.395| = 5.395

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16452, race ID 1554 (538 database).