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2008 Senate · NJ

Marist College · fieldwork ended 2008-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 628 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 41%

D+7.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.03% · Republican 41.95%

D+14.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 41 = 7.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.030 − 41.954 = 14.076
  3. Signed miss = 7.00 − (14.076) = -7.076
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.076| = 7.076

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16752, race ID 1567 (538 database).