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2008 Senate · NH

University of New Hampshire Survey Center · fieldwork ended 2008-10-20 (15 days before the election) · 725 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 36%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 51.59% · Republican 45.25%

D+6.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 36 = 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 16741, race ID 1566 (538 database).