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2008 Senate · CO

Public Opinion Strategies · fieldwork ended 2008-10-22 (13 days before the election) · 500 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 51% · Republican 38%

D+13.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.80% · Republican 42.49%

D+10.3

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 51 − 38 = 13.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.796 − 42.492 = 10.304
  3. Signed miss = 13.00 − (10.304) = 2.696
  4. Absolute miss = |2.696| = 2.696

The poll overstated the Democrat by 2.7 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 63708, race ID 1548 (538 database).