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2008 Senate · MN

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 1,050 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 40%

D+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 41.98%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 40 = 5.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.994 − 41.983 = 0.011
  3. Signed miss = 5.00 − (0.011) = 4.989
  4. Absolute miss = |4.989| = 4.989

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16529, race ID 1561 (538 database).