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2008 Senate · NJ

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-29 (6 days before the election) · 632 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 52% · Republican 37%

D+15.0

The certified result

Democrat 56.03% · Republican 41.95%

D+14.1

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 52 − 37 = 15.00
  2. Actual margin = 56.030 − 41.954 = 14.076
  3. Signed miss = 15.00 − (14.076) = 0.924
  4. Absolute miss = |0.924| = 0.924

The poll overstated the Democrat by 0.9 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16541, race ID 1567 (538 database).