Skip to content

2008 Senate · MN

St. Cloud State University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 509 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 27% · Republican 36%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 41.98%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 27 − 36 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.994 − 41.983 = 0.011
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (0.011) = -9.011
  4. Absolute miss = |-9.011| = 9.011

The poll overstated the Republican by 9.0 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16730, race ID 1561 (538 database).