2008 Senate · ME
Digital Research · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 443 respondents · Live Phone
The poll said
Democrat 42% · Republican 54%
R+12.0
The certified result
Democrat 38.58% · Republican 61.33%
R+22.7
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 42 − 54 = -12.00
- Actual margin = 38.583 − 61.331 = -22.748
- Signed miss = -12.00 − (-22.748) = 10.748
- Absolute miss = |10.748| = 10.748
The poll overstated the Democrat by 10.7 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16789, race ID 1558 (538 database).