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2008 House · SC-1

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 600 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 45% · Republican 50%

R+5.0

The certified result

Democrat 47.89% · Republican 51.93%

R+4.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 45 − 50 = -5.00
  2. Actual margin = 47.889 − 51.931 = -4.042
  3. Signed miss = -5.00 − (-4.042) = -0.959
  4. Absolute miss = |-0.959| = 0.959

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64357, race ID 4377 (538 database).