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2008 House · MN-3

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-26 (9 days before the election) · 643 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 44% · Republican 45%

R+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.85% · Republican 48.48%

R+7.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 44 − 45 = -1.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.852 − 48.477 = -7.625
  3. Signed miss = -1.00 − (-7.625) = 6.625
  4. Absolute miss = |6.625| = 6.625

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64359, race ID 4241 (538 database).