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2008 Senate · MI

Selzer & Co. · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 616 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 32%

D+21.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.66% · Republican 33.85%

D+28.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 32 = 21.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.665 − 33.846 = 28.819
  3. Signed miss = 21.00 − (28.819) = -7.819
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.819| = 7.819

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16505, race ID 1560 (538 database).