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2008 Senate · NE

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 407 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 34% · Republican 53%

R+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 40.06% · Republican 57.52%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 34 − 53 = -19.00
  2. Actual margin = 40.057 − 57.520 = -17.463
  3. Signed miss = -19.00 − (-17.463) = -1.537
  4. Absolute miss = |-1.537| = 1.537

The poll overstated the Republican by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16463, race ID 1565 (538 database).