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2008 Senate · MN

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 699 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 40% · Republican 39%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 41.99% · Republican 41.98%

even

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 40 − 39 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 41.994 − 41.983 = 0.011
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (0.011) = 0.989
  4. Absolute miss = |0.989| = 0.989

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16477, race ID 1561 (538 database).