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2008 Senate · MA

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 705 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 55% · Republican 32%

D+23.0

The certified result

Democrat 63.55% · Republican 29.84%

D+33.7

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 55 − 32 = 23.00
  2. Actual margin = 63.551 − 29.844 = 33.707
  3. Signed miss = 23.00 − (33.707) = -10.707
  4. Absolute miss = |-10.707| = 10.707

The poll overstated the Republican by 10.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16476, race ID 1559 (538 database).