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2008 House · MO-6

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-27 (8 days before the election) · 618 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 36% · Republican 54%

R+18.0

The certified result

Democrat 36.86% · Republican 59.43%

R+22.6

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 36 − 54 = -18.00
  2. Actual margin = 36.860 − 59.427 = -22.567
  3. Signed miss = -18.00 − (-22.567) = 4.568
  4. Absolute miss = |4.568| = 4.568

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.6 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 64360, race ID 4256 (538 database).