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2008 Senate · OK

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2008-10-25 (10 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone · partisan sponsor (REP)

The poll said

Democrat 38% · Republican 54%

R+16.0

The certified result

Democrat 39.18% · Republican 56.68%

R+17.5

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 38 − 54 = -16.00
  2. Actual margin = 39.184 − 56.680 = -17.496
  3. Signed miss = -16.00 − (-17.496) = 1.496
  4. Absolute miss = |1.496| = 1.496

The poll overstated the Democrat by 1.5 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 24126, race ID 1570 (538 database).