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2008 Senate · OK

SurveyUSA · fieldwork ended 2008-10-18 (17 days before the election) · 561 respondents · IVR

The poll said

Democrat 39% · Republican 51%

R+12.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.18% · Republican 56.68%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 39 − 51 = -12.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.184 − 56.680 = -17.496
  3. Signed miss = -12.00 − (-17.496) = 5.496
  4. Absolute miss = |5.496| = 5.496

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

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 16809, race ID 1570 (538 database).