Skip to content

2008 Senate · GA

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2008-11-01 (3 days before the election) · 1,253 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 48%

R+2.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.83% · Republican 49.76%

R+2.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 48 = -2.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.833 − 49.756 = -2.923
  3. Signed miss = -2.00 − (-2.923) = 0.924
  4. Absolute miss = |0.924| = 0.924

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16417, race ID 1550 (538 database).