2008 House · MN-6
SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-21 (14 days before the election) · 621 respondents · IVR
The poll said
Democrat 47% · Republican 44%
D+3.0
The certified result
Democrat 43.43% · Republican 46.41%
R+3.0
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 47 − 44 = 3.00
- Actual margin = 43.433 − 46.406 = -2.973
- Signed miss = 3.00 − (-2.973) = 5.973
- Absolute miss = |5.973| = 5.973
The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.0 points and had the wrong leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64338, race ID 4244 (538 database).