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2008 Senate · NC

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy · fieldwork ended 2008-10-23 (12 days before the election) · 800 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 42% · Republican 46%

R+4.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.65% · Republican 44.18%

D+8.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 42 − 46 = -4.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.653 − 44.184 = 8.469
  3. Signed miss = -4.00 − (8.469) = -12.469
  4. Absolute miss = |-12.469| = 12.469

The poll overstated the Republican by 12.5 points and had the wrong leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24097, race ID 1569 (538 database).