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2008 Senate · MN

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 42%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 41.98%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 42 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.994 − 41.983 = 0.011
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (0.011) = -6.011
  4. Absolute miss = |-6.011| = 6.011

The poll overstated the Republican by 6.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16595, race ID 1561 (538 database).