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2008 Senate · NC

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-19 (16 days before the election) · 627 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 46% · Republican 45%

D+1.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.65% · Republican 44.18%

D+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 46 − 45 = 1.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.653 − 44.184 = 8.469
  3. Signed miss = 1.00 − (8.469) = -7.469
  4. Absolute miss = |-7.469| = 7.469

The poll overstated the Republican by 7.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16776, race ID 1569 (538 database).