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2008 Senate · OK

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 491 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 50%

R+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.18% · Republican 56.68%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 50 = -11.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.184 − 56.680 = -17.496
  3. Signed miss = -11.00 − (-17.496) = 6.496
  4. Absolute miss = |6.496| = 6.496

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16496, race ID 1570 (538 database).