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2008 Senate · MI

YouGov · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 973 respondents · Online Panel

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 29%

D+23.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.66% · Republican 33.85%

D+28.8

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 29 = 23.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.665 − 33.846 = 28.819
  3. Signed miss = 23.00 − (28.819) = -5.819
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.819| = 5.819

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.8 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16489, race ID 1560 (538 database).