2008 Senate · LA
Mellman Group · fieldwork ended 2008-10-17 (18 days before the election) · 600 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (DEM)
The poll said
Democrat 54% · Republican 34%
D+20.0
The certified result
Democrat 52.11% · Republican 45.72%
D+6.4
The arithmetic
- Poll margin = 54 − 34 = 20.00
- Actual margin = 52.110 − 45.723 = 6.387
- Signed miss = 20.00 − (6.387) = 13.614
- Absolute miss = |13.614| = 13.614
The poll overstated the Democrat by 13.6 points and had the right leader.
Where these numbers come from
Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24104, race ID 1557 (538 database).