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2008 Senate · SC

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 728 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 31% · Republican 47%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.25% · Republican 57.52%

R+15.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 31 − 47 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.247 − 57.525 = -15.278
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-15.278) = -0.722
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.722| = 0.722

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16458, race ID 1573 (538 database).