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2008 Senate · TX

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-19 (16 days before the election) · 550 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 45%

R+9.0

The certified result

Democrat 42.84% · Republican 54.82%

R+12.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 45 = -9.00
  2. Actual margin = 42.838 − 54.821 = -11.983
  3. Signed miss = -9.00 − (-11.983) = 2.983
  4. Absolute miss = |2.983| = 2.983

The poll overstated the Democrat by 3.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16743, race ID 1576 (538 database).