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2008 Senate · VA

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 652 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 60% · Republican 36%

D+24.0

The certified result

Democrat 65.03% · Republican 33.73%

D+31.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 60 − 36 = 24.00
  2. Actual margin = 65.033 − 33.729 = 31.304
  3. Signed miss = 24.00 − (31.304) = -7.304
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.304| = 7.304

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.3 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63753, race ID 1577 (538 database).