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2008 Senate · NC

GfK Group · fieldwork ended 2008-10-24 (11 days before the election) · 601 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 47% · Republican 43%

D+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.65% · Republican 44.18%

D+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 47 − 43 = 4.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.653 − 44.184 = 8.469
  3. Signed miss = 4.00 − (8.469) = -4.469
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.469| = 4.469

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16637, race ID 1569 (538 database).