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2008 Senate · AL

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 452 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 26% · Republican 54%

R+28.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.52% · Republican 63.36%

R+26.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 26 − 54 = -28.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.520 − 63.362 = -26.842
  3. Signed miss = -28.00 − (-26.842) = -1.158
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.158| = 1.158

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.2 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16473, race ID 1545 (538 database).