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2008 Senate · NH

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 682 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 53% · Republican 40%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.59% · Republican 45.25%

D+6.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 53 − 40 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 51.590 − 45.252 = 6.338
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (6.338) = 6.662
  4. Absolute miss = |6.662| = 6.662

The poll overstated the Democrat by 6.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16540, race ID 1566 (538 database).