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2008 Senate · KY

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-19 (16 days before the election) · 535 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 48%

even

The certified result

Democrat 47.03% · Republican 52.97%

R+5.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 48 = 0.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.034 − 52.966 = -5.932
  3. Signed miss = 0.00 − (-5.932) = 5.931
  4. Absolute miss = |5.931| = 5.931

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.9 points and showed a tie.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16777, race ID 1556 (538 database).