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2008 Senate · OK

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-28 (7 days before the election) · 594 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 56%

R+20.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.18% · Republican 56.68%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 56 = -20.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.184 − 56.680 = -17.496
  3. Signed miss = -20.00 − (-17.496) = -2.504
  4. Absolute miss = |-2.504| = 2.504

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 16571, race ID 1570 (538 database).