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2008 Senate · DE

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 346 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 58% · Republican 31%

D+27.0

The certified result

Democrat 64.69% · Republican 35.31%

D+29.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 58 − 31 = 27.00
  2. Actual margin = 64.687 − 35.313 = 29.374
  3. Signed miss = 27.00 − (29.374) = -2.373
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.373| = 2.373

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16466, race ID 1549 (538 database).