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2008 Senate · CO

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 43%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.80% · Republican 42.49%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 43 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.796 − 42.492 = 10.304
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (10.304) = -6.304
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.304| = 6.304

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16552, race ID 1548 (538 database).