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2008 Senate · NC

Public Policy Polling · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 1,038 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 48% · Republican 45%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.65% · Republican 44.18%

D+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 48 − 45 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.653 − 44.184 = 8.469
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (8.469) = -5.469
  4. Absolute miss = |-5.469| = 5.469

The poll overstated the Republican by 5.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16652, race ID 1569 (538 database).