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2008 Senate · NC

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 955 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 42%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.65% · Republican 44.18%

D+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 42 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.653 − 44.184 = 8.469
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (8.469) = -2.469
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.469| = 2.469

The poll overstated the Republican by 2.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16495, race ID 1569 (538 database).