2008 Senate · MA
Suffolk University · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 400 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 56% · Republican 19%
D+37.0
The certified result
Democrat 63.55% · Republican 29.84%
D+33.7
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 56 − 19 = 37.00
- Actual margin = 63.551 − 29.844 = 33.707
- Signed miss = 37.00 − (33.707) = 3.293
- Absolute miss = |3.293| = 3.293
The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.3 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16735, race ID 1559 (538 database).