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2008 Senate · NJ

Monmouth University Polling Institute · fieldwork ended 2008-10-30 (5 days before the election) · 801 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 50% · Republican 31%

D+19.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.03% · Republican 41.95%

D+14.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 50 − 31 = 19.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.030 − 41.954 = 14.076
  3. Signed miss = 19.00 − (14.076) = 4.924
  4. Absolute miss = |4.924| = 4.924

The poll overstated the Democrat by 4.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16504, race ID 1567 (538 database).