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2008 Senate · KS

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 613 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 35% · Republican 57%

R+22.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.46% · Republican 60.06%

R+23.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 35 − 57 = -22.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.458 − 60.058 = -23.600
  3. Signed miss = -22.00 − (-23.600) = 1.600
  4. Absolute miss = |1.600| = 1.600

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16737, race ID 1555 (538 database).