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2008 Senate · NH

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 816 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 42%

D+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.59% · Republican 45.25%

D+6.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 42 = 6.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.590 − 45.252 = 6.338
  3. Signed miss = 6.00 − (6.338) = -0.338
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.338| = 0.338

The poll overstated the Republican by 0.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 54158, race ID 1566 (538 database).