Skip to content

2008 Senate · VA

Big Village · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 721 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 63% · Republican 35%

D+28.0

The certified result

Democrat 65.03% · Republican 33.73%

D+31.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 63 − 35 = 28.00
  2. Actual margin = 65.033 − 33.729 = 31.304
  3. Signed miss = 28.00 − (31.304) = -3.304
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.304| = 3.304

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16583, race ID 1577 (538 database).