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2008 Senate · KS

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 626 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 33% · Republican 60%

R+27.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.46% · Republican 60.06%

R+23.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 33 − 60 = -27.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.458 − 60.058 = -23.600
  3. Signed miss = -27.00 − (-23.600) = -3.400
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.400| = 3.400

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16605, race ID 1555 (538 database).