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2008 Senate · ME

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-19 (16 days before the election) · 642 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 43% · Republican 54%

R+11.0

The certified result

Democrat 38.58% · Republican 61.33%

R+22.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 43 − 54 = -11.00
  2. Actual margin = 38.583 − 61.331 = -22.748
  3. Signed miss = -11.00 − (-22.748) = 11.748
  4. Absolute miss = |11.748| = 11.748

The poll overstated the Democrat by 11.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16775, race ID 1558 (538 database).