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2008 President · national

Gallup · fieldwork ended 2008-10-17 (18 days before the election) · 2,400 respondents · Live Phone

The poll said

Democrat 49% · Republican 46%

D+3.0

The certified result

Democrat 52.76% · Republican 45.36%

D+7.4

The arithmetic

  1. Poll margin = 49 − 46 = 3.00
  2. Actual margin = 52.760 − 45.360 = 7.400
  3. Signed miss = 3.00 − (7.400) = -4.400
  4. Absolute miss = |-4.400| = 4.400

The poll overstated the Republican by 4.4 points and had the right leader.

Where these numbers come from

Poll and result: 538 raw_polls.csv. Poll ID 15080, race ID 38 (538 database).