2008 Senate · GA
Mellman Group · fieldwork ended 2008-11-22 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)
The poll said
Democrat 46% · Republican 48%
R+2.0
The certified result
Democrat 42.56% · Republican 57.44%
R+14.9
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 46 − 48 = -2.00
- Actual margin = 42.560 − 57.440 = -14.880
- Signed miss = -2.00 − (-14.880) = 12.879
- Absolute miss = |12.879| = 12.879
The poll overstated the Democrat by 12.9 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24101, race ID 1551 (538 database).