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2008 Senate · SD

GQR · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 603 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 62% · Republican 32%

D+30.0

The certified result

Democrat 62.49% · Republican 37.51%

D+25.0

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 62 − 32 = 30.00
  2. Actual margin = 62.492 − 37.508 = 24.984
  3. Signed miss = 30.00 − (24.984) = 5.017
  4. Absolute miss = |5.017| = 5.017

The poll overstated the Democrat by 5.0 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24077, race ID 1574 (538 database).