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2008 Senate · GA

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 625 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 45%

R+6.0

The certified result

Democrat 46.83% · Republican 49.76%

R+2.9

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 45 = -6.00
  2. Actual margin = 46.833 − 49.756 = -2.923
  3. Signed miss = -6.00 − (-2.923) = -3.076
  4. Absolute miss = |-3.076| = 3.076

The poll overstated the Republican by 3.1 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16694, race ID 1550 (538 database).