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2008 Senate · VA

Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research · fieldwork ended 2008-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 614 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 57% · Republican 22%

D+35.0

The certified result

Democrat 65.03% · Republican 33.73%

D+31.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 57 − 22 = 35.00
  2. Actual margin = 65.033 − 33.729 = 31.304
  3. Signed miss = 35.00 − (31.304) = 3.696
  4. Absolute miss = |3.696| = 3.696

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16667, race ID 1577 (538 database).